Book of Wise Sayings
_Tom Browne._
73.
We may be as good as we please, if we please to be good.
_Barrow._
74.
The round of a passionate man's life is in contracting debts in his
passion which his virtue obliges him to pay. He spends his time in
outrage and acknowledgment, injury and reparation.
_Johnson._
75.
To reprehend well is the most necessary and the hardest part of
friendship. Who is it that does not sometimes merit a check, and yet
how few will endure one? Yet wherein can a friend more unfold his
love than in preventing dangers before their birth, or in bringing a
man to safety who is travelling on the road to ruin? I grant there
is a manner of reprehending which turns a benefit into an injury,
and then it both strengthens error and wounds the giver. When thou
chidest thy wandering friend do it secretly, in season, in love, not
in the ear of a popular convention, for oftentimes the presence of a
multitude makes a man take up an unjust defence, rather than fall
into a just shame.
_Feltham._
76.
I put no account on him who esteems himself just as the popular
breath may chance to raise him.
_Goethe._
77.
He who seeks wealth sacrifices his own pleasure, and, like him who
carries burdens for others, bears the load of anxiety.
_Hitopadesa._
78.
Circumspection in calamity; mercy in greatness; good speeches in
assemblies; fortitude in adversity: these are the self-attained
perfections of great souls.
_Hitopadesa._
79.
The best preacher is the heart; the best teacher is time; the best
book is the world; the best friend is God.
_Talmud._
80.
A woman will not throw away a garland, though soiled, which her
lover gave: not in the object lies a present's worth, but in the
love which it was meant to mark.
_Bharavi._
81.
Men who have not observed discipline, and have not gained treasure
in their youth, perish like old herons in a lake without fish.
_Dhammapada._
82.
As drops of bitter medicine, though minute, may have a salutary
force, so words, though few and painful, uttered seasonably, may
rouse the prostrate energies of those who meet misfortune with
despondency.
_Bharavi._
83.
There are three whose life is no life: he who lives at another's
table; he whose wife domineers over him; and he who suffers bodily
affliction.
_Talmud._
84.
Let thy words between two foes be such that if they were to become
friends thou shouldst not be ashamed.
_Sa'di._
85.
An indiscreet man is more hurtful than an ill-natured one; for as
the latter will only attack his enemies, and those he wishes ill to,
the other injures indifferently both his friends and foes.
_Addison._
86.
A man of quick and active wit
For drudgery is more unfit,
Compared to those of duller parts,
Than running nags are to draw carts.
_Butler._
87.
All affectation is the vain and ridiculous attempt of poverty to
appear rich.
_Lavater._
88.
There never was, there never will be, a man who is always praised,
or a man who is always blamed.
_Dhammapada._
89.
A good man's intellect is piercing, yet inflicts no wound; his
actions are deliberate, yet bold; his heart is warm, but never
burns; his speech is eloquent, yet ever true.
_Magha._
90.
He who can feel ashamed will not readily do wrong.
_Talmud._
91.
A stranger who is kind is a kinsman; an unkind kinsman is a
stranger.
_Hitopadesa._
92.
The good to others kindness show,
And from them no return exact;
The best and greatest men, they know,
Thus ever nobly love to act.[7]
_Mahabharata._
[7] Cf. Luke, VI, 34, 35.
93.
Trees loaded with fruit are bent down; the clouds when charged with
fresh rain hang down near the earth: even so good men are not
uplifted through prosperity. Such is the natural character of the
liberal.
_Bhartrihari._
94.
The man who neither gives in charity nor enjoys his wealth, which
every day increases, breathes, indeed, like the bellows of a smith,
but cannot be said to live.
_Hitopadesa._
95.
That energy which veils itself in mildness is most effective of its
object.
_Magha._
96.
Our writings are like so many dishes, our readers, our guests, our
books, like beauty--that which one admires another rejects; so we
are approved as men's fancies are inclined.... As apothecaries, we
make new mixtures every day, pour out of one vessel into another;
and as those old Romans robbed all cities of the world to set out
their bad-cited Rome, we skim off the cream of other men's wits,
pick the choice flowers of their tilled gardens, to set out our own
sterile plots. We weave the same web still, twist the same rope
again and again; or, if it be a new invention, 'tis but some bauble
or toy, which idle fellows write, for as idle fellows to read.[8]
_Burton._
[8] Ferriar has pointed out, in his _Illustrations of
Sterne_, how these passages from Burton's _Anatomy of
Melancholy_ have been boldly plagiarised in the
introduction to the fragment on Whiskers in _Tristram
Shandy_: "Shall we for ever make new books as
apothecaries make new mixtures, by only pouring out of
one vessel into another? Are we for ever to be twisting
and untwisting the same rope?" And Dr. Johnson, who was
a great admirer of Burton, adopts the illustration of
the plundering Romans in his _Rambler_, No. 143.
97.
It is our follies that make our lives uncomfortable. Our errors of
opinion, our cowardly fear of the world's worthless censure, and our
eagerness after unnecessary gold have hampered the way of virtue,
and made it far more difficult than, in itself, it is.
_Feltham._
98.
There is not half so much danger in the desperate sword of a known
foe as in the smooth insinuations of a pretended friend.
_R. Chamberlain._
99.
Nothing is so oppressive as a secret; it is difficult for ladies to
keep it long, and I know even in this matter a good number of men
who are women.
_La Fontaine._
100.
All kinds of beauty do not inspire love: there is a kind of it which
pleases only the sight, but does not captivate the affections.
_Cervantes._
101.
Contentment consisteth not in heaping more fuel, but in taking away
some fire.
_Fuller._
102.
It is difficult to personate and act a part long, for where truth is
not at the bottom Nature will always be endeavouring to return, and
will peep out and betray herself one time or other.
_Tillotson._
103.
The truest characters of ignorance
Are vanity, pride, and arrogance;
As blind men use to bear their noses higher
Than those that have their eyes and sight entire.
_Butler._
104.
It is better to be well deserving without praise than to live by the
air of undeserved commendation.
_R. Chamberlain._
105.
He travels safe and not unpleasantly who is guarded by poverty and
guided by love.
_Sir P. Sidney._
106.
Never put thyself in the way of temptation: even David could not
resist it.
_Talmud._
107.
Pride is a vice which pride itself inclines every man to find in
others and overlook in himself.
_Johnson._
108.
By six qualities may a fool be known: anger, without cause; speech,
without profit; change, without motive; inquiry, without an object;
trust in a stranger; and incapacity to discriminate between friend
and foe.
_Arabic._
109.
Men are not to be judged by their looks, habits, and appearances,
but by the character of their lives and conversations. 'Tis better
that a man's own works than another man's words should praise him.
_Sir R. L'Estrange._
110.
To exert his power in doing good is man's most glorious task.
_Sophocles._
111.
Those who are skilled in archery bend their bow only when they are
prepared to use it; when they do not require it they allow it to
remain unbent, for otherwise it would be unserviceable when the time
for using it arrived. So it is with man. If he were to devote
himself unceasingly to a dull round of business, without breaking
the monotony by cheerful amusements, he would fall imperceptibly
into idiotcy, or be struck with paralysis.
_Herodotus._
112.
Blinded by self-conceit and knowing nothing,
Like elephant infatuate with passion,
I thought within myself, I all things knew;
But when by slow degrees I somewhat learnt
By aid of wise preceptors, my conceit,
Like some disease, passed off; and now I live
In the plain sense of what a fool I am.
_Bhartrihari._
113.
Time is the most important thing in human life, for what is pleasure
after the departure of time? and the most consolatory, since pain,
when pain has passed, is nothing. Time is the wheel-track in which
we roll on towards eternity, conducting us to the Incomprehensible.
In its progress there is a ripening power, and it ripens us the
more, and the more powerfully, when we duly estimate it. Listen to
its voice, do not waste it, but regard it as the highest finite
good, in which all finite things are resolved.
_Von Humboldt._
114.
All that we are is made up of our thoughts; it is founded on our
thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speak or act with
a pure thought, happiness will follow him, like a shadow that never
leaves him.
_Dhammapada._
115.
Depend not on another, rather lean
Upon thyself; trust to thine own exertions:
Subjection to another's will gives pain;
True happiness consists in self-reliance.