The Good Book (76 page)

  4. Who knows little often repeats it.

  5. Knowledge comes, wisdom lingers.

  6. Knowledge is a treasure-house, practice is the key to it.

  7. Knowledge is the only elegance.

  8. The desire for knowledge increases with its acquisition.

  9. They know enough who know how to learn.

10. Those who thirst for knowledge, get it.

11. Better to know something about everything than everything about one thing.

12. There is only one good: knowledge. There is only one evil: ignorance.

13. Who knows nothing never doubts.

14. Who knows most believes least.

15. Who knows most forgives most.

16. A learned man has always riches in himself.

17. All wish to know, but none wish to pay the fee.

Chapter 92: Laughter

  1. A maid that laughs is half taken.

  2. A fool laughs because others laugh.

  3. Laughter is sunshine in a house.

  4. All things are cause either for laughing or weeping.

  5. People show their characters in what they laugh at.

  6. No one is sadder than one who laughs too much.

  7. Ill-timed laughter is dangerous.

  8. What is worse than to be laughed at?

Chapter 93: Law

  1. Agree, for the law is costly.

  2. Who goes to law holds a wolf by the ears.

  3. A rich knave is a libel on the law.

  4. Bad laws are the worst tyranny.

  5. The best way to be rid of bad laws is to apply them rigorously.

  6. Law cannot persuade where it cannot punish.

  7. Let law govern man if reason governs the law.

  8. Law is a bottomless pit.

  9. Law is a pickpocket.

10. Laws should be servants, not masters.

11. Laws are like cobwebs, that catch small flies but let foxes break through.

12. Much law, little justice.

13. Petty laws breed great crimes.

14. Law manufactures a crime, then punishes it.

15. Unnecessary laws are bad laws.

16. Laws are useless when people are pure, broken when people are impure.

17. Where law ends, tyranny begins.

18. The noise of weapons drowns the voice of law.

19. Arms and laws do not dwell together.

20. A lean compromise is better than a fat lawsuit.

21. The more laws, the more offenders.

22. The prince is not above the laws.

23. Fear not the law, but the judge.

Chapter 94: Leisure

  1. A life of laziness and a life of leisure are not the same thing.

  2. To have leisure requires good use of time; the idle have least leisure, the self-disciplined most.

  3. Those who use time well are least at leisure when at leisure; for they use leisure to improve their mind’s estate, and to nourish friendship.

  4. Leisure is the reward of labour, the mother of philosophy, a bringer of gifts.

  5. Leisure is the repair of life, knitting up the ends frayed by labour and striving.

  6. Leisure is the womb of innovations, the brother of art, the companion of love.

  7. Leisure is the stream that replenishes the reservoir, with waters clean and cool.

Chapter 95: Lending

  1. Will you make an enemy? Let him borrow from you.

  2. It is better to give a dollar than lend a cent.

  3. Lend to a foe and make a friend; lend to a friend and make a foe.

  4. What we spent we have; what we gave came back doubled; what we lent we lost.

  5. Loans do not come laughing home, but stay abroad as enemies.

  6. If you would lend, lend only what you can lose.

  7. If you have enough to lend, you have enough to give; and gain more by it.

Chapter 96: Liars

  1. Liars begin by deceiving others, and end by deceiving themselves.

  2. Old folk and great travellers lie by licence; lawyers lie for pay.

  3. Why say ‘Show me a liar and I’ll show you a thief’? Because liars steal trust.

  4. When the liar speaks true, is he believed? Does the liar believe even the honest man?

  5. The liar more readily takes an oath.

  6. The liar is sooner caught than one who cannot run.

  7. The liar is less happy than the sufferer for truth.

  8. The liar has no real friend.

  9. Liars have least respect for other people.

10. Liars have least respect from other people.

Chapter 97: Liberty

  1. Lean liberty is better than fat slavery.

  2. Liberty is not licence.

  3. The price of liberty is unsleeping vigilance.

  4. Better a crust in liberty than sweetmeats in prison.

  5. Liberty is the breath of progress.

  6. Liberty is the free man’s country.

Chapter 98: Lies

  1. Half the truth is often a great lie.

  2. Who hears much, hears many lies.

  3. The cruellest lies are often told in silence.

  4. Lies grow with repetition.

  5. There is no lie so reckless as lacks some proof.

  6. You can travel far with a lie, but you cannot come back.

Chapter 99: Life

  1. Life is short and full of blisters.

  2. A long life might not be good enough, but a good life is long enough.

  3. To live well is to live long.

  4. Life is all in this present hour.

  5. Life is short and time is swift.

  6. They do not live more who live longer.

  7. Life is a school of probability.

  8. Life is a lesson in humility.

  9. Life is a loom, weaving illusions.

10. Life is a winter’s day and a winter’s way.

11. The secret of life is not to do what you like, but to like what you do.

12. Many do not live, but linger.

13. Do not look for a golden life in an iron age.

14. While I live, let it not be in vain.

15. Not life itself, but living ill, is evil.

16. They live badly who are always about to begin living.

17. We live not as we wish but as we can.

18. As long as one lives, one must continue learning how to live.

Chapter 100: Love

  1. Love makes any place agreeable.

  2. We have a choice to begin love, but not to end it.

  3. Love knows no laws or conditions.

  4. Dry bread is better with love than a fat capon with fear.

  5. They who have love in their hearts have spurs in their sides.

  6. Hope is a lover’s staff.

  7. The lover is no judge of beauty.

  8. In love there is no lack.

  9. Labour is light where love pays.

10. Love and ambition do not keep fellowship.

11. Love and pride are both roads to lunacy.

12. Love and sorrow were born twins.

13. Love built on beauty fades as soon as it ages.

14. Hasty love is soon hot and soon cold.

15. Love is more than great riches.

16. Love is master where he will.

17. Love is the noblest frailty of the mind.

18. Calf love, half love; old love, cold love.

19. Love is the salt of life.

20. Love is too young to know what conscience is.

21. Love has neither reason nor law.

22. Love keeps out the cold better than a cloak.

23. Love knows no measure.

24. There is beggary in the love that can be counted.

25. Love laughs at locksmiths.

26. The lover is a monarch.

27. Love needs no instruction.

28. Pity is one remove from love.

29. She loves enough who does not hate.

30. Come blows, love goes.

31. Love is a hearth for forbidden fires.

32. Love is a talkative passion.

33. Love is an egoism of two.

34. Love is stronger than death.

35. Love makes time pass; time makes love pass.

36. Love never dies of starvation, but often of indigestion.

37. The beloved is always right.

38. Love lessens women’s delicacy, and increases men’s.

39. Love’s anger is fuel to love.

40. Lovers take pleasure from their misfortunes.

41. Love excuses its own faults.

42. Love is blind, but sees far.

43. Love abounds in honey and poison.

44. Love is the same in everyone.

45. Love is credulous.

46. What love commands, it is not safe to despise.

47. The lover loves much who weeps.

48. Love is the child of illusion, and the parent of disillusion.

49. Affection bends the judgement to her ply.

50. When affection speaks, truth is not always by.

Chapter 101: Mankind

  1. Good people and bad people are both less so than they seem.

  2. Humans are animals that make bargains.

  3. Man is a gaming animal.

  4. Man is a substance clad in shadows.

  5. People are beasts when shame deserts them.

  6. Man is to man the surest ill.

  7. Human beings are mankind’s greatest enemy.

  8. Customs vary, but human nature is always the same.

  9. Nature revolves, but humanity advances.

10. No one is born learned and wise.

11. A human being is a mere reed, but a thinking reed.

12. For mankind, nothing is certain but death.

13. Nothing is more glorious or more wretched than humanity.

14. People too often talk wisely but live foolishly.

Chapter 102: Manners

  1. Good breeding is the fruit of good sense.

  2. As in the hall, so on the hill.

  3. The sum of good manners is, ‘After you.’

  4. Good manners consist in small sacrifices.

  5. Manners make the man.

  6. Manners are morals.

  7. As the times, so the manners.

  8. Evil communications corrupt good manners.

  9. Office corrupts manners.

Chapter 103: Mind

  1. A vacant mind is open to all suggestions, as a mountain cave to echoes.

  2. Fat bodies, lean minds.

  3. If the brain sows no corn, it grows thistles.

  4. Whatever afflicts people, their minds are free.

  5. In the end, mind vanquishes sword.

  6. It is good to polish the mind against other minds.

  7. It is the mind that ennobles, not the blood.

  8. A noble mind is free to all.

  9. Light minds love trifles.

10. The wise master their minds, fools are mastered by them.

11. Pain of mind is worse than pain of body.

12. The mind alone cannot suffer exile.

13. The mind is the man.

14. To relax the mind is to lose it.

15. The mind rules, the body serves.

Chapter 104: Misers

  1. A miser’s money takes the place of wisdom.

  2. Misers put their backs and bellies into their pockets.

  3. The miser gives straw to his dog and bones to his ass.

  4. A miser spoils the coat by scanting the cloth.

  5. Niggard father, spendthrift son.

  6. The miser is always poor.

  7. What misers have is of as much use to them as what they have not.

Chapter 105: Moderation

  1. Measure is medicine.

  2. The best things carried to excess are wrong.