The Good Book (75 page)

13. Fools set stools for the wise to stumble over.

14. Fools tie knots, and the wise untie them.

15. They are not wise who cannot sometimes play the fool.

16. Most fools think they are only ignorant.

17. One fool praises another.

18. The fool wanders, the wise travel.

19. The wise draw more advantage from their enemies than fools from their friends.

20. Every fool has a bigger fool to praise him.

21. Hairdressers learn their trade on fools’ heads.

22. If fools ate no bread, wheat would be cheap.

23. With fools it is always holiday.

24. Do not speak of stones to fools lest they throw them at your head.

25. Fools say what they know, the wise know what they say.

26. Better a slap from a wise person than a kiss from a fool.

27. Better to lose with the wise than win with a fool.

Chapter 73: Forgiveness

  1. Good to forgive, best to forget.

  2. Forgive others sooner than yourself.

  3. The offender never pardons.

  4. Who forgives readily only invites offence.

  5. One pardons in the degree that one loves.

  6. To understand is to forgive.

  7. Forgiveness is better than revenge.

Chapter 74: Freedom

  1. Better be a free bird than a captive king.

  2. Restraint from ill is freedom to the wise.

  3. To have the blessings of freedom requires the pains of getting and keeping it.

  4. You are free at the moment you wish to be free.

  5. The free never grow old.

  6. They who have lost their freedom have nothing else to lose.

  7. No bad person is free.

  8. None are free who lack self-mastery.

Chapter 75: Friends

  1. The road is never long to a friend’s house.

  2. A judicious friend is better than a zealous friend.

  3. They are not all friends who speak us fair.

  4. Be slow to choose friends, slower in changing them.

  5. Better be a nettle to your friend than his echo.

  6. They are friends who give help rather than pity.

  7. The best mirror is an old friend.

  8. I will be your friend, but not your vices’ friend.

  9. A false friend, like a shadow, attends only in sunlight.

10. Promises get friends, performances keep them.

11. The only way to have a friend is to be one.

12. The vanquished have no friends.

13. Be a friend to yourself, and others will befriend you.

14. Relatives are given, friends chosen.

15. A friend to all is a friend to none.

16. Prosperity makes friends and adversity tries them.

17. Where there are friends there is wealth.

18. They who have a thousand friends have not one to spare.

19. A friend can be treated without ceremony, but not without civility.

20. Friendship is a commerce between equals.

21. Friendship is not to be valued by material advantages.

Chapter 76: Genius

  1. Genius can only breathe in the air of liberty.

  2. Genius is of no country.

  3. Genius is mainly energy.

  4. Genius is a compound of labour and diligence.

  5. Genius is patience.

  6. Genius is the capacity for hard work.

  7. Genius is the capacity for avoiding hard work.

  8. Genius must be born and can never be taught.

  9. Genius rusts for want of use.

10. Hunger is the handmaid of genius.

11. Rules and models destroy genius.

12. Genius is able to do what talent cannot.

13. Adversity reveals genius, prosperity hides it.

Chapter 77: Gluttony

  1. A full belly is the mother of evil.

  2. A full belly makes a dull brain.

  3. A full stomach neither fights well nor flees well.

  4. An empty stomach hears nobody.

  5. They who do not mind their bellies will mind little else.

  6. The belly hates a long lecture.

  7. The belly robs the back.

  8. The stomach thinks that the throat has been cut.

  9. When the belly is full, the bones are at rest.

10. When the belly is full, the mind is with the maids.

11. No clock is more regular than the stomach.

12. The belly is a bad adviser.

13. A gross belly does not make a refined mind.

14. It is hard to argue with the stomach, for it has no ears.

15. Empty stomach, no sleep.

Chapter 78: Goodness

  1. Good people are a public good.

  2. Take good will for part payment.

  3. Not to serve the good is to serve the bad.

  4. They can never be good who are not obstinate.

  5. Good that comes too late is no good.

  6. Few things are good for nothing at all.

  7. Good and evil can be close neighbours.

  8. Do not say that none are good.

  9. Be called good rather than fortunate.

10. The good make others good.

11. What is good is never plentiful.

12. If you put good in, you can take good out.

Chapter 79: Gratitude

  1. Do not cut down the tree that gives you shade.

  2. Praise the bridge that carried you over.

  3. Mere words are empty thanks.

  4. Most people’s gratitude is but the hope of receiving more.

  5. Gratitude soon grows old and dies.

Chapter 80: Grief

  1. Grief makes one hour ten.

  2. Grief told brings a little peace.

  3. Grief instructs the wise.

  4. New grief awakens the old.

  5. The cure for grief is action.

  6. Little griefs make us tender, great griefs make us hard.

  7. Of all ills common to humankind, grief is greatest.

  8. They who conceal grief find no remedy for it.

  9. Light griefs can speak; great griefs are dumb.

10. There is no grief that time does not lessen.

11. The crown of sorrows is remembrance of happier times.

12. When sorrow sleeps, do not wake it.

13. The longest sorrow at last finds relief.

14. Nothing comes too soon but grief.

Chapter 81: Habit

  1. People’s natures are alike, it is their habits that divide them.

  2. Habits are first cobwebs, then cables.

  3. Habit is ten times nature.

  4. It is hard to break a bad custom.

  5. It is easier to prevent bad habits than reform them.

  6. Man is an animal of habit.

  7. Unresisted habits become necessities.

  8. Much injustice is caused by habit.

Chapter 82: Haste

  1. Fools haste to no speed.

  2. A hasty person never lacks trouble.

  3. Haste trips on its own heels.

  4. They hasten well who have patience.

  5. The hasty fish lives in an empty pond.

  6. They tire quickly who hasten too much.

  7. Be patient, to finish more quickly.

  8. The hasty arrive as late as the slow.

  9. Great haste makes error.

10. Haste is the parent of failure.

11. Haste and prudence never meet.

12. Who pours in haste spills most to waste.

Chapter 83: Hate

  1. People never understand those they hate.

  2. Hate never ages.

  3. Hate and mistrust are born of blindness.

  4. Hatred is self-punishment.

  5. Hatred has the sharpest eyes.

  6. A true man hates no one.

  7. Hatred sinks us below those we hate.

  8. Hatred renewed is fiercer than first hatred.

  9. Hatred proclaimed loses its chance of revenge.

10. We hate those we have injured.

11. Whom people fear they hate, whom they hate they wish dead.

Chapter 84: Health

  1. A cool head and warm feet live long.

  2. Whoever is healthy is young.

  3. Who lives by medicine lives miserably.

  4. Better to lose health like a spendthrift than waste it like a miser.

  5. They destroy their health who labour to protect it.

  6. Better lack a supper than have a hundred doctors.

  7. Health comes when the feet do more than the mouth.

Chapter 85: Honesty

  1. Honest people do not make themselves dogs for the sake of a bone.

  2. An honest person is a citizen of the world.

  3. Honest people fear neither light nor dark.

  4. Clean hands are better than full ones.

  5. It is never too late to be honest.

  6. Honesty is rarely the way to wealth.

Chapter 86: Hope

  1. Hope is the pauper’s income.

  2. Hope is a good breakfast but a poor supper.

  3. Who lives by hope must die of hunger.

  4. Hope is a bad guide, but good company on the way.

  5. Without hope the heart must break.

  6. Never quit certainty for hope.

  7. None so well but hopes to be better.

  8. If hope breaks, patience must hold.

  9. Hope makes the fool rich.

10. To cease to hope is to cease to fear.

11. Great hopes make great men.

Chapter 87: Idleness

  1. All things are easy to industry, difficult to sloth.

  2. An idle head is a box for the wind.

  3. An idle youth, a needy age.

  4. Poison comes from standing water.

  5. Idle dogs worry sheep.

  6. Idle people have least leisure.

  7. Idle people have most labour.

  8. Idleness is the mother of poverty and the nurse of vice.

  9. Idleness destroys.

10. Idleness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him.

11. To do nothing is in everyone’s power.

12. To do nothing is to be nothing.

13. Indolence is the sleep of the mind.

14. The idle breathe but do not live.

Chapter 88: Ignorance

  1. An ignorant person is one who walks by night.

  2. A person without knowledge is like one who is dead.

  3. Our lives are shortened more by lack of knowledge than by lack of years.

  4. The tragedy of ignorance is complacency.

  5. There is no slavery but ignorance.

  6. To be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of ignorance.

  7. Better unborn than untaught.

Chapter 89: Justice

  1. Delay of justice is injustice.

  2. Justice is impossible without wisdom.

  3. The extremity of justice is unjust.

  4. Where there is justice, it is freedom to obey.

  5. Any time is the proper time for justice.

Chapter 90: Kindness

  1. Kindness is more binding than a loan.

  2. A kind heart loses nothing.

  3. The nearer the kindred, the less the kindness.

Chapter 91: Knowledge

  1. To know one’s ignorance is the best part of knowledge.

  2. A man is what he knows.

  3. Investment in knowledge pays the best interest.