Book of Wise Sayings - W. A. Clouston (smallest ebook reader TXT) 📗
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Harrington.
Envy is a vice that would pose a man to tell what it should be liked for. Other vices we assume for that we falsely suppose they bring us either pleasure, profit, or honour. But in envy who is it can find any of these? Instead of pleasure, we vex and gall ourselves. Like cankered brass, it only eats itself, nay, discolours and renders it noisome. When some one told Agis that those of his neighbour’s family did envy him, “Why, then,” says he, “they have a double vexation—one, with their own evil, the other, at my prosperity.”
Feltham.
The most silent people are generally those who think most highly of themselves. They fancy themselves superior to every one else, and, not being sure of making good their secret pretensions, decline entering the lists altogether. Thus they “lay the flattering unction to their souls” that they could have said better things than others, or that the conversation was beneath them.
Hazlitt.
It is commonly a dangerous thing for a man to have more sense than his neighbours. Socrates paid for his superiority with his life; and if Aristotle saved his skin, accused as he was of heresy by the chief priest Eurymedon, it was because he took to his heels in time.
Wieland.
Flattery may be considered as a mode of companionship, degrading but profitable to him who flatters.
Theophrastus.
Rich presents, though profusely given, Are not so dear to righteous Heaven As gifts by honest gains supplied, Though small, which faith hath sanctified.
Mahābhārata.
To-day is thine to spend, but not to-morrow;
Counting on morrows breedeth bankrupt sorrow:
O squander not this breath that Heaven hath lent thee;
Make not too sure another breath to borrow.
Omar Khayyām.
Leave not the business of to-day to be done to-morrow; for who knoweth what may be thy condition to-morrow? The rose-garden, which to-day is full of flowers, when to-morrow thou wouldst pluck a rose, may not afford thee one.
Firdausī.
Virtue beameth from a generous spirit as light from the moon, or as brilliancy from Jupiter.
Nizāmī.
The worth of a horse is known by its speed, the value of oxen by their carrying power, the worth of a cow by its milk-giving capacity, and that of a wise man by his speech.
Burmese.
Men of genius are often dull and inert in society, as the blazing meteor when it descends to earth is only a stone.
Longfellow.
If a man die young he hath left us at dinner; it is bed-time with a man of three score and ten; and he that lives a hundred years hath walked a mile after supper. This life is but one day of three meals, or one meal of three courses—childhood, youth, and old age. To sup well is to live well, and that’s the way to sleep well.
Overbury.
There is nothing keeps longer than a middling fortune, and nothing melts away sooner than a great one. Poverty treads upon the heels of great and unexpected riches.
La Bruyère.
Society is a more level surface than we imagine. Wise men or absolute fools are hard to be met with, as there are few giants or dwarfs. The heaviest charge we can bring against the general texture of society is that it is commonplace. Our fancied superiority to others is in some one thing which we think most of because we excel in it, or have paid most attention to it; whilst we overlook their superiority to us in something else which they set equal and exclusive store by.
Hazlitt.
It is resignation and contentment that are best calculated to lead us safely through life. Whoever has not sufficient power to endure privations, and even suffering, can never feel that he is armour-proof against painful emotions; nay, he must attribute to himself, or at least to the morbid sensitiveness of his nature, every disagreeable feeling he may suffer.
Von Humboldt.
Petrarch observes, that we change language, habits, laws, customs, manners, but not vices, not diseases, not the symptoms of folly and madness—they are still the same. And as a river, we see, keeps the like name and place, but not water, and yet ever runs, our times and persons alter, vices are the same, and ever be. Look how nightingales sang of old, cocks crowed, kine lowed, sheep bleated, sparrows chirped, dogs barked, so they do still: we keep our madness still, play the fool still; we are of the same humours and inclinations as our predecessors were; you shall find us all alike, much as one, we and our sons, and so shall our posterity continue to the last.
Burton.
The mother of the useful arts is necessity, that of the fine arts is luxury; for father the former have intellect, the latter, genius, which itself is a kind of luxury.
Schopenhauer.
The fool who knows his foolishness is wise so far, at least; but a fool who thinks himself wise, he is called a fool indeed.
Dhammapada.
He who mixes with unclean things becomes unclean himself; he whose associations are pure becomes purer each day.
Talmud.
Heaven’s gate is narrow and minute,*
It cannot be perceived by foolish men,
Blinded by vain illusions of the world.
E’en the clear-sighted, who discern the way
And seek to enter, find the portal barred
And hard to be unlocked. Its massive bolts
Are pride and passion, avarice and lust.
Mahābhārata.
* Cf. Matt. VII, 14.
Eschew that friend, if thou art wise, who consorts with thy enemies.
Sa’dī.
Who can tell
Men’s hearts? The purest comprehend
Such contradictions, and can blend
The force to bear, the power to feel,
The tender bud, the tempered steel.
Hindu Drama.
Whosoever hath not knowledge, and benevolence, and piety knoweth nothing of reality, and dwelleth only in semblance.
Sa’dī.
If thou shouldst find thy friend in the wrong reprove him secretly, but in the presence of company praise him.
Arabic.
Modesty is attended with profit, arrogance brings on destruction.
Chinese.
The greatest hatred, like the greatest virtue and the worst dogs, is quiet.
Richter.
Is a preface exquisitely written? No literary morsel is more delicious. Is the author inveterately dull? It is a kind of preparatory information, which may be very useful. It argues a deficiency of taste to turn over an elaborate preface unread: for it is the attar of the author’s roses, every drop distilled at an immense cost. It is the reason of the reasoning, and the folly of the foolish.
Isaac D’Israeli.
Vulgar prejudices are those which arise out of accident, ignorance, or authority; natural prejudices are those which arise out of the constitution of the human mind itself.
Hazlitt.
Lament not Fortune’s mutability,
And seize her fickle favours ere they flee;
If others never mourned departed bliss,
How should a turn of Fortune come to thee?
Omar Khayyām.
Harsh reproof is like a violent storm, soon washed down the channel; but friendly admonitions, like a small shower, pierce deep, and bring forth better reformation.
R. Chamberlain.
There are braying men in the world as well as braying asses; for what’s loud and senseless talking, huffing, and swearing any other than a more fashionable way of braying?
L’Estrange.
All wit and fancy, like a diamond,
The more exact and curious ’tis ground,
Is forced for every carat to abate
As much of value as it wants in weight.
Butler.
Listen, if you would learn; be silent, if you would be safe.
Arabic.
All such distinctions as tend to set the orders of the state at a distance from each other are equally subversive of liberty and concord.
Livy.
No man is the wiser for his learning. It may administer matter to work in, or objects to work upon, but wit and wisdom are born with a man.
Selden.
Those who are guided by reason are generally successful in their plans; those who are rash and precipitate seldom enjoy the favour of the gods.
Herodotus.
Whosoever lends a greedy ear to a slanderous report is either himself of a radically bad disposition or a mere child in sense.
Menander.
A foolish man in wealth and authority is like a weak-timbered house with a too-ponderous roof.
R. Chamberlain.
A lively blockhead in company is a public benefit. Silence or dulness by the side of folly looks like wisdom.
Hazlitt.
Eminent positions make eminent men greater and little men less.
La Bruyère.
Scratch yourself with your own nails; always do your own business, and when you intend asking for a service, go to a person who can appreciate your merit.
Arabic.
The beauty of some women has days and seasons, depending upon accidents which diminish or increase it; nay, the very passions of the mind naturally improve or impair it, and very often utterly destroy it.
Cervantes.
No joy in nature is so sublimely affecting as the joy of a mother at the good fortune of a child.
Richter.
Want and sorrow are the gifts which folly earns for itself.
Schubert.
In character, in manners, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.
Longfellow.
Those who cause dissensions in order to injure other people are preparing pitfalls for their own ruin.
Chinese.
Such deeds as thou with fear and grief
Wouldst, on a sick-bed laid, recall,
In youth and health eschew them all,
Remembering life is frail and brief.
Mahābhārata.
A man should not keep company with one whose character, family, and abode are unknown.
Panchatantra.
Sit not down to the table before thy stomach is empty, and rise before thou hast filled it.
Arabic.
If thou be rich, strive to command thy money, lest it command thee.
Quarles.
In all companies there are more fools than wise men, and the greater part always gets the better of the wiser.
Rabelais.
Talents are best nurtured in solitude; character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.
Goethe.
No one ought to despond in adverse circumstances, for they may turn out to be the cause of good to us.*
Menander.
* Cf. Job V, 17; Heb. XII, 6.
The constant man loses not his virtue in misfortune. A torch may point towards the ground, but its flame will still point upwards.
Bhartrihari.
A man should never despise himself, for brilliant success never attends on the man who is contemned by himself.
Mahābhārata.
It is the character of a simpleton to be a bore. A man of sense sees at once whether he is welcome or tiresome; he knows to withdraw
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