["By nature woman is a flirt, but her flirting changes both in the mode and object according to her opinions."-- Rousseau, Emile.] 242.--We often bore others when we think we cannot possibly bore them. 243.--Few things are impossible in themselves; application to make them succeed fails us more often than the means. 244.--Sovereign ability consists in knowing the value of things. 245.--There is great ability in knowing how to conceal one's ability. ["You have accomplished a great stroke in diplomacy when you have made others think that you have only very average abilities."--La Bruyere.] 246.--What seems generosity is often disguised ambition, that despises small to run after greater interest. 247.--The fidelity of most men is merely an invention of self-love to win confidence; a method to place us above others and to render us depositaries of the most important matters. 248.--Magnanimity despises all, to win all. 249.--There is no less eloquence in the voice, in the eyes and in the air of a speaker than in his choice of words. 250.--True eloquence consists in saying all that should be, not all that could be said. 251.--There are people whose faults become them, others whose very virtues disgrace them. ["There are faults which do him honour, and virtues that disgrace him."--Junius, Letter Of 28th May, 1770.] 252.--It is as common to change one's tastes, as it is uncommon to change one's inclinations. 253.--Interest sets at work all sorts of virtues and vices. 254.--Humility is often a feigned submission which we employ to supplant others. It is one of the devices of Pride to lower us to raise us; and truly pride transforms itself in a thousand ways, and is never so well disguised and more able to deceive than when it hides itself under the form of humility. ["Grave and plausible enough to be thought fit for business."--Junius, Letter To The Duke Of Grafton. "He saw a cottage with a double coach-house, A cottage of gentility, And the devil was pleased, for his darling sin Is the pride that apes humility." Southey, Devil's Walk.] {There are numerous corrections necessary for this quotation; I will keep the original above so you can compare the correct passages: "He passed a cottage with a double coach-house, A cottage of gentility, And he owned with a grin, That his favourite sin Is pride that apes humility." --Southey, Devil's Walk, Stanza 8. "And the devil did grin, for his darling sin Is pride that apes humility." --Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Devil's Thoughts} 255.--All feelings have their peculiar tone of voice, gestures and looks, and this harmony, as it is good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, makes people agreeable or disagreeable. 256.--In all professions we affect a part and an appearance to seem what we wish to be. Thus the world is merely composed of actors. ["All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players."--Shakespeare, As You Like It{, Act II, Scene VII, Jaques}.