Life and Literature

Chapter 89

A thread will tie an honest man better than a rope will do a rogue.

1227

Would you make men trustworthy? Trust them.

Would you make them true? Believe them.

We win by tenderness.

We conquer by forgiveness.

--_Robertson._

1228

If there is any person to whom you unfortunately feel a dislike that is the person of whom you ought never to speak.

--_Richard Cecil._

1229

He is not yet born who can please everybody.

1230

Fenimore Cooper a.s.serts, in one of his books, that there is "an instinctive tendency in men to look at any man who has become distinguished." Said Carlyle: "True, surely, and moreover, an instinctive desire in men to become distinguished and be looked at, too!"

1231

It is not what he has, nor even what he does, which directly expresses the worth of a man, but what he is.

--_Amiel._

1232

Man is not allowed to know what will happen--tomorrow.

--_Statius._

1233

A horse is not known by his furniture, but by his qualities; so men should be esteemed for virtue, not wealth.

1234

Man looks aloft, and with erected eyes Beholds his own hereditary skies.

--_Dryden"s Ovid._

1235

The best club for a married man is an armchair in front of a big fire-place at home.

1236

Men take each other"s measure when they meet for the first time.

1237

Does one see wolves taking to the road in order to plunder other wolves, as does inhuman man?

1238

No man can end with being superior, who will not begin with being inferior.

--_Sydney Smith._

1239

Never speak of a man in his own presence.

It is always indelicate, and may be offensive.

--_Dr. Johnson._

1240

No man is always wise.

--_Pliny._

1241

An obstinate man does not hold opinions, but they hold him.

1242