Book of Wise Sayings - W. A. Clouston (smallest ebook reader TXT) 📗
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Firdausī.
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 Khayyām.
Be thou generous, and gentle, and forgiving; as God hath scattered upon thee, scatter thou upon others.
Sa’dī.
In the body restraint is good; good is restraint in speech; in thought restraint is good: good is restraint in all things.
Dhammapada.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Purpose without power is mere weakness and deception; and power without purpose is mere fatuity.
Sa’dī.
Suffering is the necessary consequence of sin, just as when you eat a sour fruit a stomach complaint ensues.
Burmese.
Riches disclose in a man’s character the bad qualities formerly concealed in his poverty.
Arabic.
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.
Ramāyāna.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Firdausī.
Parents’ affection is best shown by their teaching their children industry and self-denial.
Burmese.
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.
He who has given satisfaction to the best of his time has lived for ages.
Schiller.
I never yet found pride in a noble nature nor humility in an unworthy mind.
Feltham.
Worldly fame is but a breath of wind, that blows now this way, now that, and changes name as it changes sides.
Dante.
True modesty and true pride are much the same thing. Both consist in setting a just value on ourselves—neither more nor less.
Hazlitt.
Never does a man portray his own character more vividly than in his manner of portraying another.
Richter.
A foolish husband fears his wife; a prudent wife obeys her husband.
Chinese.
He who devises evil for another falls at last into his own pit, and the most cunning finds himself caught by what he had prepared for another. But virtue without guile, erect like the lofty palm, rises with greater vigour when it is oppressed.
Metastasio.
Laughing is peculiar to man, but all men do not laugh for the same reason. There is the attic salt which springs from the charm in the words, from the flash of wit, from the spirited and brilliant sally. There is the low joke which arises from scurrility and idle conceit.
Goldoni.
The woman who is resolved to be respected can make herself be so even amidst an army of soldiers.
Cervantes.
Petty ambition would seem to be a mean craving after distinction.
Theophrastus.
It is an old observation that wise men grow usually wiser as they grow older, and fools more foolish.
Wieland.
Use law and physic only for necessity. They that use them otherwise abuse themselves into weak bodies and light purses. They are good remedies, bad businesses, and worse recreations.
Quarles.
In some dispositions there is such an envious kind of pride that they cannot endure that any but themselves should be set forth as excellent; so that when they hear one justly praised they will either openly detract from his virtues; or, if those virtues be, like a clear and shining light, eminent and distinguished, so that he cannot be safely traduced by the tongue, they will then raise a suspicion against him by a mysterious silence, as if there were something remaining to be told which overclouded even his brightest glory.
Feltham.
Every man thinks with himself, I am well, I am wise, and laughs at others; and ’tis a general fault amongst them all, that which our forefathers approved—diet, apparel, humours, customs, manners—we deride and reject in our time as absurd.
Burton.
Repeated sin destroys the understanding
And he whose reason is impaired repeats
His sins. The constant practising of virtue
Strengthens the mental faculties, and he
Whose judgment stronger grows acts always right.
Mahābhārata.
If you wish to know how much preferable wisdom is to gold, then observe: if you change gold you get silver for it, but your gold is gone; but if you exchange one sort of wisdom for another, you obtain fresh knowledge, and at the same time keep what you possessed before.
Talmud.
The man who listens not to the words of affectionate friends will give joy in the time of distress to his enemies.
Hitopadesa.
It is a proverbial expression that every man is the maker of his own fortune, and we usually regard it as implying that every man by his folly or wisdom prepares good or evil for himself. But we may view it in another light, namely, that we may so accommodate ourselves to the dispositions of Providence as to be happy in our lot, whatever may be its privations.
Von Humboldt.
Be very circumspect in the choice of thy company. In the society of thy equals thou shalt enjoy more pleasure; in the society of thy superiors thou shalt find more profit. To be the best of the company is the way to grow worse; the best means to grow better is to be the worst there.
Quarles.
Assume in adversity a countenance of prosperity, and in prosperity moderate thy temper.
Livy.
Mark this! who lives beyond his means
Forfeits respect, loses his sense;
Where’er he goes, through the seven births,
All count him knave: him women hate.
Hindu Poetess.
Be cautious in your intercourse with the great; they seldom confer obligations on their inferiors but from interested motives. Friendly they appear as long as it serves their turn, but they will render no assistance in time of actual need.
Talmud.
Man, though he be gray-headed when he comes back, soon gets a young wife. But a woman’s time is short within which she can expect to obtain a husband. If she allows it to slip away, no one cares to marry her. She sits at home, speculating on the probability of her marriage.
Aristophanes.
Hearts are like tapers, which at beauteous eyes
Kindle a flame of love that never dies;
And beauty is a flame, where hearts, like moths,
Offer themselves a burning sacrifice.
Omar Khayyām.
When thou utterest not a word thou hast laid thy hand upon it; when thou hast uttered it, it hath laid its hand on thee.
Sa’dī.
To the tongue which bringeth thee words without reason, the answer that best beseemeth thee is—silence.
Nizāmī.
The man who talketh much and never acteth will not be held in reputation by anyone.
Firdausī.
Two sources of success are known: wisdom and effort; make them both thine own, if thou wouldst haply rise.
Māgha.
The worse the ill that fate on noble souls
Inflicts, the more their firmness; and they arm
Their spirits with adamant to meet the blow.
Hindu Drama.
Opportunities lose not, for all delay is madness;
’Mid bitter sorrow patience show, for ’tis the key of gladness.
Turkish.
Man is the only animal with the powers of laughter, a privilege which was not bestowed on him for nothing. Let us then laugh while we may, no matter how broad the laugh may be, and despite of what the poet says about “the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind.” The mind should occasionally be vacant, as the land should sometimes lie fallow, and for precisely the same reason.
Egerton Smith.
The man of affluence is not in fact more happy than the possessor of a bare competency, unless, in addition to his wealth, the end of his life be fortunate. We often see misery dwelling in the midst of splendour, whilst real happiness is found in humbler stations.
Herodotus.
Love of money is the disease which renders us most pitiful and grovelling, and love of pleasure is that which renders us most despicable.
Longinus.
He who labours diligently need never despair. We can accomplish every thing by diligence and labour.
Menander.
Lost money is bewailed with deeper sighs
Than friends, or kindred, and with louder cries.
Juvenal.
In one short verse I here express
The sum of tomes of sacred lore:
Beneficence is righteousness,
Oppression’s sin’s malignant core.
Sanskrit.
A wound inflicted by arrows heals, a wood cut down by an axe grows, but harsh words are hateful—a wound inflicted by them does not heal. Arrows of different sorts can be extracted from the body, but a word-dart cannot be drawn out, for it is seated in the heart.
Mahābhārata.
To address a judicious remark to a thoughtless man is
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