Book of Wise Sayings | Page 3

gold,
is broken with difficulty, and easily repaired.
Hitopadesa.
16.
The son who delights his father by his good actions; the wife who seeks

only her husband's good; the friend who is the same in prosperity and
adversity--these three things are the reward of virtue.
Bhartrihari.
17.
Let us not overstrain our abilities, or we shall do nothing with grace. A
clown, whatever he may do, will never pass for a gentleman.
La Fontaine.
18.
To abstain from speaking is regarded as very difficult. It is not possible
to say much that is valuable and striking.[2]
Mahábhárata.
[2] Cf. James, III, 8.
19.
Pagodas are, like mosques, true houses of prayer; 'Tis prayer that
church bells waft upon the air; Kaaba and temple, rosary and cross, All
are but divers tongues of world-wide prayer.
Omar Khayyám.
20.
In no wise ask about the faults of others, for he who reporteth the faults
of others will report thine also.
Firdausí.
21.
He that holds fast the golden mean, And lives contentedly between The

little and the great, Feels not the wants that pinch the poor, Nor plagues
that haunt the rich man's door, Embittering all his state.
Horace.
22.
Nothing is more becoming a man than silence. It is not the preaching
but the practice which ought to be considered as the more important. A
profusion of words is sure to lead to error.
Talmud.
23.
Consider, and you will find that almost all the transactions of the time
of Vespasian differed little from those of the present day. You there
find marrying and giving in marriage, educating children, sickness,
death, war, joyous holidays, traffic, agriculture, flatterers, insolent pride,
suspicions, laying of plots, longing for the death of others,
newsmongers, lovers, misers, men canvassing for consulship--yet all
these passed away, and are nowhere.
M. Aurelius.
24.
The friendship of the bad is like the shade of some precipitous bank
with crumbling sides, which, falling, buries him who is beneath.
Bháravi.
25.
His action no applause invites Who simply good with good repays; He
only justly merits praise Who wrongful deeds with kind requites.[3]
Panchatantra.

[3] Matt. V, 43, 44.
26.
Death comes, and makes a man his prey, A man whose powers are yet
unspent; Like one on gathering flowers intent, Whose thoughts are
turned another way.
Begin betimes to practise good, Lest fate surprise thee unawares Amid
thy round of schemes and cares; To-morrow's task to-day conclude.[4]
Mahábhárata.
[4] Eccles. IX, 10; XII, 1.
27.
Let a man's talents or virtues be what they may, we feel satisfaction in
his society only as he is satisfied in himself. We cannot enjoy the good
qualities of a friend if he seems to be none the better for them.
Hazlitt.
28.
It was a false maxim of Domitian that he who would gain the people of
Rome must promise all things and perform nothing. For when a man is
known to be false in his word, instead of a column, which he might be
by keeping it, for others to rest upon, he becomes a reed, which no man
will vouchsafe to lean upon. Like a floating island, when we come next
day to seek it, it is carried from the place we left it in, and, instead of
earth to build upon, we find nothing but inconstant and deceiving
waves.
Feltham.
29.
He is not dead who departs this life with high fame; dead is he, though

living, whose brow is branded with infamy.
Tieck.
30.
In the height of thy prosperity expect adversity, but fear it not. If it
come not, thou art the more sweetly possessed of the happiness thou
hast, and the more strongly confirmed. If it come, thou art the more
gently dispossessed of the happiness thou hadst, and the more firmly
prepared.
Quarles.
31.
A prudent man will not discover his poverty, his self-torments, the
disorders of his house, his uneasiness, or his disgrace.
Hitopadesa.
32.
Men are of three different capacities: one understands intuitively;
another understands so far as it is explained; and a third understands
neither of himself nor by explanation. The first is excellent, the second,
commendable, and the third, altogether useless.
Machiavelli.
33.
It is difficult to understand men, but still harder to know them
thoroughly.
Schiller.
34.

Worldly fame and pleasure are destructive to the virtue of the mind;
anxious thoughts and apprehensions are injurious to the health of the
body.
Chinese.
35.
Alas, for him who is gone and hath done no good work! The trumpet of
march has sounded, and his load was not bound on.
Persian.
36.
Human experience, like the stern-lights of a ship at sea, illumines only
the path which we have passed over.
Coleridge.
37.
Man is an actor who plays various parts: First comes a boy, then out a