Sic vita erat: facile omnes perferre ac pati:
Cum quibus erat cunque una, his sese dedere,
Eorum obsequi studiis: advorsus nemini;
Nunquam praeponens se aliis. Ita facillime
Sine invidia invenias laudem. -
TER., Andr., Act i. se. 1.

His manner of life was this: to bear with everybody's humours; to
comply with the inclinations and pursuits of those he conversed
with; to contradict nobody; never to assume a superiority over
others. This is the ready way to gain applause without exciting
envy.

Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very
condition of humanity, and yet, as if Nature had not sown evils
enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief, and
aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one
another. Every man's natural weight of affliction is still made
more heavy by the envy, malice, treachery, or injustice of his
neighbour. At the same time that the storm beats on the whole
species, we are falling foul upon one another.

Half the misery of human life might be extinguished, would men
alleviate the general curse they lie under, by mutual offices of
compassion, benevolence, and humanity. There is nothing, therefore,
which we ought more to encourage in ourselves and others, than that
disposition of mind which in our language goes under the title of
good nature, and which I shall choose for the subject of this day's
speculation.