(51.) Though the charge of maintaining a poor person may be very burdensome to us, yet a change of fortune, which makes him no longer our dependent, gives us no great pleasure, in the same way as our joy at the preferment of a friend is somewhat tempered by the small grudge we bear him for having become our superior or our equal. Thus we agree but ill with ourselves, for we should like to have others dependent on us, but, it must cost us nothing; and we should like to see our friends prosperous, yet when good fortune comes to them, the first thing we do is not always to be glad about it. (52.) People send you invitations, ask you to come to their house, offer you even board and lodging, nay, their very fortune and their services; all this costs them nothing; but will they be as good as their word? (53.) One faithful friend is enough for a man, and he is very fortunate to meet with one; yet he cannot have too many which may be of use to others. (54.) When we have done all that we can do for certain people in order to acquire their friendship, and we find we have been unsuccessful, there is still one resource left to us, which is, not to do anything more. (55.) To live with our enemies as if they might one day become our friends,[194] and to live with our friends as if they might some time or other become our enemies, is equally opposed to the very nature of hatred, as well as to the rules of friendship. It may be a political maxim, it is certainly not a moral one. (56.) We ought not to make those people our enemies who might have become our friends, if we had only known them better. We ought to choose friends of such a high and honourable character that, even after having ceased to remain our friends, they should not abuse our confidence, nor make us dread them as our enemies. (57.) It is pleasant to visit our friends because we like and esteem them; it is a torture to frequent them because we want them; then we become applicants. (58.) We should try and gain the affections of those to whom we wish to do good rather than of those who could do us some good.[195] (59.) We do not employ the same means for bettering our position as we do in pursuing frivolous and fanciful things. We feel a certain kind of freedom in acting according to our fancy, and, on the contrary, a certain kind of thraldom in labouring for obtaining a place. It is natural to desire it ardently and to take little pains to obtain it, for we think that we deserve it without seeking for it. (60.) He who knows how to wait for what he desires does not feel very desperate if he fails in obtaining it; and he, on the contrary, who is very impatient in procuring a certain thing, takes so much pains about it, that, even when he is successful, he does not think himself sufficiently rewarded. (61.) There are certain people who so ardently and so passionately[196] desire a thing, that from dread of losing it they leave nothing undone to make them lose it.