Book of Wise Sayings | Page 6

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.
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'dí.
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.
Bháravi.
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 Khayyám.
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