Speak when you are spoken to, and come when you are called for. Advice should not, generally speaking, be offered until it is required, for, proffered service stinks. But if we see one, in whose welfare we feel ourselves interested, about to engage in a connection, or business, by which he is likely to be injured, it becomes then the part of a friend to interfere, and admonish him of his danger, though his opinion should not have been asked, or even though caution has been used, to keep the circumstance from his knowledge. Still the task is far from being grateful. «Le mauvais metier», Guy Patin says, «que celui de censeur; on ne gagne à l'exercer que la haine de ceux qu'on reprend, et on ne corrige personne», it is a bad business that of a censor, he is sure to incur the hatred of those he reproves, without having the pleasure of finding them improved by his advice. Ne prendre conseil que de sa tete, that is, Take counsel only of your own thoughts, the French say, but this is in some degree contradicted by the following: Un fou avise bien un sage, even a fool may suggest what may deserve the attention of a wise man; we should therefore listen to advice, let it come from what quarter it will, for Al buen consejo no se halla precio, good advice is inestimable.

When a vessel, in sailing, inclines too much to one side, the passengers usually crowd to the other, where seems to be the greatest safety, and when fortune ceases to smile on anyone, or he is found to be sinking, it is then that his friends usually leave him, and fly to others who are more successful. Though such conduct cannot but be condemned by all ingenuous persons, yet on the other hand, we should not so connect ourselves with the fortunes of those who are falling, as to make our own ruin inevitable with theirs. «Juvare amicos rebus afflictis decet». We should indeed assist our friends in their misfortunes, but not at the hazard of the destruction of ourselves and families, otherwise we should subject ourselves to the censure implied in the following, «Alienos agros, irrigas tuis sitientibus», while watering the fields of our neighbour, we leave our own to be parched with drought. Harto es necio y loco, quien vacia su cuerpo, por inchir el de otro, he is foolish and mad enough, who empties his own purse to fill that of another.

When you have nearly completed any business in which you are engaged, do not through weariness, or inconstancy, leave it unfinished, but persist to the end; else all the time, labour, and expense that have been bestowed upon the work, will be lost, and you will lose your character likewise; or when you perceive yourself about to die, with patience and courage submit to your fate, and do not weakly and foolishly wish for an extension of your life, in the vain hope that you should live more rationally. «Hell», we say, «is full of good meanings and wishes». «O mihi praeteritos referat, si Jupiter annos!» You knew that the term of your life was uncertain, and should long since have entered on the course you now propose to begin, but which, if the opportunity were given, you would probably neglect as heretofore.

Arguing against what is clear and self-evident, is the same as denying that the sun shines at mid-day.