INDUSTRIOUSNESS AND CONSCIENTIOUSNESS.--Industriousness and conscientiousness are often antagonists, owing to the fact that industriousness wants to pluck the fruit sour from the tree while conscientiousness wants to let it hang too long, until it falls and is bruised. 557. CASTING SUSPICION.--We endeavour to cast suspicion on persons whom we cannot endure. 558. THE CONDITIONS ARE LACKING.--Many people wait all their lives for the opportunity to be good in _their own way._ 559. LACK OF FRIENDS.--Lack of friends leads to the inference that a person is envious or presumptuous. Many a man owes his friends merely to the fortunate circumstance that he has no occasion for envy. 560. DANGER IN MANIFOLDNESS.--With one talent more we often stand less firmly than with one less; just as a table stands better on three feet than on four. 561. AN EXEMPLAR FOR OTHERS.--Whoever wants to set a good example must add a grain of folly to his virtue; people then imitate their exemplar and at the same time raise themselves above him, a thing they love to do. 562. BEING A TARGET.--The bad things others say about us are often not really aimed at us, but are the manifestations of spite or ill-humour occasioned by quite different causes. 563. EASILY RESIGNED.--We suffer but little on account of ungratified wishes if we have exercised our imagination in distorting the past. 564. IN DANGER.--One is in greatest danger of being run over when one has just got out of the way of a carriage. 565. THE ROLE ACCORDING TO THE VOICE.--Whoever is obliged to speak louder than he naturally does (say, to a partially deaf person or before a large audience), usually exaggerates what he has to communicate. Many a one becomes a conspirator, malevolent gossip, or intriguer, merely because his voice is best suited for whispering. 566. LOVE AND HATRED.--Love and hatred are not blind, but are dazzled by the fire which they carry about with them. 567. ADVANTAGEOUSLY PERSECUTED.--People who cannot make their merits perfectly obvious to the world endeavour to awaken a strong hostility against themselves. They have then the consolation of thinking that this hostility stands between their merits and the acknowledgment thereof--- and that many others think the same thing, which is very advantageous for their recognition. 568. CONFESSION.--We forget our fault when we have confessed it to another person, but he does not generally forget it. 569. SELF-SUFFICIENCY.--The Golden Fleece of self-sufficiency is a protection against blows, but not against needle-pricks. 570. SHADOWS IN THE FLAME.--The flame is not so bright to itself as to those whom it illuminates,--so also the wise man. 571. OUR OWN OPINIONS.--The first opinion that occurs to us when we are suddenly asked about anything is not usually our own, but only the current opinion belonging to our caste, position, or family; our own opinions seldom float on the surface. 572.