Book of Wise Sayings
_Manu._
116.
If the friendship of the good be interrupted, their minds admit of
no long change; as when the stalks of a lotus are broken the
filaments within them are more visibly cemented.
_Hitopadesa._
117.
Anger that has no limit causes terror, and unseasonable kindness
does away with respect. Be not so severe as to cause disgust, nor so
lenient as to make people presume.
_Sa'di._
118.
Be patient, if thou wouldst thy ends accomplish; for like patience
is there no appliance effective of success, producing certainly
abundant fruit of actions, never damped by failure, conquering all
impediments.
_Bharavi._
119.
As rain breaks through an ill-thatched house, passion breaks through
an unreflecting mind.
_Dhammapada._
120.
Most men, even the most accomplished, are of limited faculties;
every one sets a value on certain qualities in himself and others:
these alone he is willing to favour, these alone will he have
cultivated.
_Goethe._
121.
Poverty, we may say, surrounds a man with ready-made barriers, which
if they do mournfully gall and hamper, do at least prescribe for
him, and force on him, a sort of course and goal; a safe and beaten,
though a circuitous, course. A great part of his guidance is secure
against fatal error, is withdrawn from his control. The rich, again,
has his whole life to guide, without goal or barrier, save of his
own choosing, and, tempted, is too likely to guide it ill.
_Carlyle._
122.
By Fate full many a heart has been undone,
And many a sprightly rose made woe-begone;
Plume thee not on thy lusty youth and strength:
Full many a bud is blasted ere its bloom.
_Omar Khayyam._
123.
The best thing is to be respected, the next, is to be loved; it is
bad to be hated, but still worse to be despised.
_Chinese._
124.
To be envied is a nobler fate than to be pitied.
_Pindar._
125.
He only does not live in vain
Who all the means within his reach
Employs--his wealth, his thought, his speech--
T'advance the weal of other men.
_Sanskrit._
126.
If you injure a harmless person, the evil will fall back upon you,
like light dust thrown up against the wind.
_Buddhist._
127.
In the life of every man there are sudden transitions of feeling,
which seem almost miraculous. At once, as if some magician had
touched the heavens and the earth, the dark clouds melt into the
air, the wind falls, and serenity succeeds the storm. The causes
which produce these changes may have been long at work within us,
but the changes themselves are instantaneous, and apparently without
sufficient cause.
_Longfellow._
128.
Man is an intellectual animal, therefore an everlasting
contradiction to himself. His senses centre in himself, his ideas
reach to the ends of the universe; so that he is torn in pieces
between the two without the possibility of its ever being otherwise.
A mere physical being or a pure spirit can alone be satisfied with
itself.
_Hazlitt._
129.
The pure in heart, who fear to sin,
The good, kindly in word and deed--
These are the beings in the world
Whose nature should be called divine.
_Buddhist._
130.
If thou desirest that the pure in heart should praise thee, lay
aside anger; be not a man of many words; and parade not thy virtues
in the face of others.
_Firdausi._
131.
A wise man takes a step at a time; he establishes one foot before he
takes up the other: an old place should not be forsaken recklessly.
_Sanskrit._
132.
The fish dwell in the depths of the waters, and the eagles in the
sides of heaven; the one, though high, may be reached with the
arrow, and the other, though deep, with the hook; but the heart of
man at a foot's distance cannot be known.[9]
_Burmese._
[9] Cf. Proverbs, XXV, 3.
133.
The life of man is the incessant walk of nature, wherein every
moment is a step towards death. Even our growing to perfection is a
progress to decay. Every thought we have is a sand running out of
the glass of life.
_Feltham._
134.
I have observed that as long as a man lives and exerts himself he
can always find food and raiment, though, it may be, not of the
choicest description.
_Goethe._
135.
There are no riches like the sweetness of content, nor poverty
comparable to the want of patience.
_R. Chamberlain._
136.
'Tis not for gain, for fame, from fear
That righteous men injustice shun,
And virtuous men hold virtue dear:
An inward voice they seem to hear,
Which tells them duty must be done.
_Mahabharata._
137.
As far and wide the vernal breeze
Sweet odours waft from blooming trees,
So, too, the grateful savour spreads
To distant lands of virtuous deeds.
_Sanskrit._
138.
In this world, however little happiness may have been our portion,
yet have we no desire to die. Whether he can speak of life as
cheerful and delicate, or as full of pain, anxiety, and sorrow,
never yet have I seen one who wished to die.
_Firdausi._
139.
When morning silvers the dark firmament,
Why shrills the bird of dawning his lament?
It is to show in dawn's bright looking-glass
How of thy careless life a night is spent.
_Omar Khayyam._
140.
Be thou generous, and gentle, and forgiving; as God hath scattered
upon thee, scatter thou upon others.
_Sa'di._
141.
In the body restraint is good; good is restraint in speech; in
thought restraint is good: good is restraint in all things.
_Dhammapada._
142.
Men say that everyone is naturally a lover of himself, and that it
is right that it should be so. This is a mistake; for in fact the
cause of all the blunders committed by man arises from this
excessive self-love. For the lover is blinded by the object loved,
so that he passes a wrong judgment upon what is just, good, and
beautiful, thinking that he ought always to honour what belongs to
himself, in preference to truth. For he who intends to be a great
man ought to love neither himself nor his own things, but only what
is just, whether it happens to be done by himself or by another.
_Plato._
143.
A man eminent in learning has not even a little virtue if he fears
to practise it. What precious things can be shown to a blind man
when he holds a lamp in his hand?
_Hitopadesa._
144.
The first forty years of our life give the text, the next thirty
furnish the commentary upon it, which enables us rightly to
understand the true meaning and connection of the text with its
moral and its beauties.
_Schopenhauer._
145.
Good actions lead to success, as good medicines to a cure: a healthy
man is joyful, and a diligent man attains learning; a just man gains
the reward of his virtue.
_Hitopadesa._
146.
Purpose without power is mere weakness and deception; and power
without purpose is mere fatuity.
_Sa'di._
147.
Suffering is the necessary consequence of sin, just as when you eat
a sour fruit a stomach complaint ensues.
_Burmese._
148.
Riches disclose in a man's character the bad qualities formerly
concealed in his poverty.
_Arabic._
149.
Whate'er the work a man performs,
The most effective aid to its completion--
The most prolific source of true success--
Is energy, without despondency.
_Ramayana._
150.
Humility is a virtue all preach, none practise, and yet everybody is
content to hear. The master thinks it good doctrine for his servant,
the laity for the clergy, and the clergy for the laity.
_Selden._
151.
Authority intoxicates,
And makes mere sots of magistrates;
The fumes of it invade the brain,
And make men giddy, proud, and vain;
By this the fool commands the wise,
The noble with the base complies,
The sot assumes the rule of wit,
And cowards make the base submit.
_Butler._
152.
No man learns to know his inmost nature by introspection, for he
rates himself sometimes too low, and often too high, by his own
measurement. Man knows himself only by comparing himself with other
men; it is life that touches his genuine worth.
_Goethe._
153.
Increase in goodness as long as thou art here, that, when thou
departest, in that thou mayest still be joyful. According to our
words and deeds in this life will be the remembrance of us in the
world.
_Firdausi._
154.
Parents' affection is best shown by their teaching their children
industry and self-denial.
_Burmese._
155.
There are three things to beware of through life: when a man is
young, let him beware of his appetites; when he is middle-aged, of
his passions; and when old, of covetousness, especially.
_Confucius._
156.
He who has given satisfaction to the best of his time has lived for
ages.
_Schiller._
157.
I never yet found pride in a noble nature nor humility in an
unworthy mind.
_Feltham._
158.
Worldly fame is but a breath of wind, that blows now this way, now
that, and changes name as it changes sides.
_Dante._
159.
True modesty and true pride are much the same thing. Both consist in
setting a just value on ourselves--neither more nor less.
_Hazlitt._
160.
Never does a man portray his own character more vividly than in his
manner of portraying another.
_Richter._
161.
A foolish husband fears his wife; a prudent wife obeys her husband.