He accounts it an argument of great discretion, and as great temper, to take no notice of affronts and indignities put upon him by great persons; for he that is insensible of injuries of this nature can receive none, and if he lose no confidence by them, can lose nothing else; for it is greater to be above injuries than either to do or revenge them, and he that will be deterred by those discouragements from prosecuting his designs will never obtain what he proposes to himself.  When a man is once known to be able to endure insolences easier than others can impose them, they will raise the siege and leave him as impregnable; and therefore he resolves never to omit the least opportunity of pressing his affairs, for fear of being baffled and affronted; for if he can at any rate render himself master of his purposes, he would not wish an easier nor a cheaper way, as he knows how to repay himself and make others receive those insolences of him for good and current payment which he was glad to take before, and he esteems it no mean glory to show his temper of such a compass as is able to reach from the highest arrogance to the meanest and most dejected submissions.  A man that has endured all sorts of affronts may be allowed, like an apprentice that has served out his time, to set up for himself and put them off upon others; and if the most common and approved way of growing rich is to gain by the ruin and loss of those who are in necessity, why should not a man be allowed as well to make himself appear great by debasing those that are below him?  For insolence is no inconsiderable way of improving greatness and authority in the opinion of the world.  If all men are born equally fit to govern, as some late philosophers affirm, he only has the advantage of all others who has the best opinion of his own abilities, how mean soever they really are; and, therefore, he steadfastly believes that pride is the only great, wise, and happy virtue that a man is capable of, and the most compendious and easy way to felicity; for he that is able to persuade himself impregnably that he is some great and excellent person, how far short soever he falls of it, finds more delight in that dream than if he were really so; and the less he is of what he fancies himself to be the better he is pleased, as men covet those things that are forbidden and denied them more greedily than those that are in their power to obtain; and he that can enjoy all the best rewards of worth and merit without the pains and trouble that attend it has a better bargain than he who pays as much for it as it is worth.  This he performs by an obstinate, implicit believing as well as he can of himself, and as meanly of all other men, for he holds it a kind of self-preservation to maintain a good estimation of himself; and as no man is bound to love his neighbour better than himself, so he ought not to think better of him than he does of himself, and he that will not afford himself a very high esteem will never spare another man any at all.  He who