The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [209]
6. Boldness is a bulwark.
7. Boldness leads to the highest or the lowest.
Chapter 22: Books
1. Something is learned every time a book is opened.
2. A book may be as great a thing as a battle.
3. Books are ships that traverse the seas of time.
4. Books cannot always please, however good; minds are not always craving for food.
5. Books give no wisdom where there was not wisdom before.
6. Rather a study full of books than a purse full of money.
7. There is nothing so old as a new book.
8. The best companions are good books.
9. The books that help most are those that prompt most thought.
10. The virtue of books is to be readable.
11. There is no frigate like a book to take us to lands far away.
12. Wear the old coat and buy the new book.
13. The world may know me by my book, and my book by me.
14. Word by word the great books are written.
15. The reader’s fancy makes the fate of books.
Chapter 23: Borrowing
1. A borrowed cloak does not keep one warm.
2. Borrowed clothes never fit well.
3. Better buy than borrow.
4. Creditors have better memories than debtors.
5. With a horse of your own you can borrow another.
6. Who borrows must pay again with shame or loss.
7. They that borrow, sorrow.
8. If you would know the value of money, try borrowing some.
9. Borrowing is the mother of trouble.
10. Borrowing thrives but once.
Chapter 24: Bread
1. Acorns were good till bread was found.
2. Bread and cheese are shields against death.
3. Eaten bread is forgotten.
4. Whose bread I break, his song I sing.
5. Others’ bread has seven crusts.
6. Another’s bread costs dear.
7. I know what I say when I ask for bread.
8. A knife is soon found for bread.
Chapter 25: Breeding
1. Better unborn than unbred.
2. Birth is much, breeding is more.
3. They are not well bred that cannot abide ill breeding in others.
4. Vipers breed vipers.
5. What is born of a cat will catch mice.
Chapter 26: Bribes
1. A bribe will enter without knocking.
2. All have their price.
3. Bribery and theft are first cousins.
4. Few people have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.
5. Honesty stands at the gate, bribery enters in.
6. A greased mouth cannot say no.
Chapter 27: Burdens
1. Every ass thinks his own load heaviest.
2. Let every pedlar carry his own pack.
3. Light burdens are heavy when borne far.
4. None knows the weight of another’s burden.
5. The back is shaped to the burden.
6. It is base to flinch under a burden.
7. The burden grows light when well borne.
8. Place the burden on the slow donkey.
9. The burden is light on another’s shoulder.
Chapter 28: Business
1. Whoever does not smile should not open a shop.
2. Fuel is not sold in the forest, nor fish by a lake.
3. Drive your business or it will drive you.
4. Everyone lives by selling something.
5. Ill ware is never cheap.
6. Keep your shop and it will keep you.
7. Good merchandise finds a ready buyer.
8. Do not buy everything that is cheap.
9. Buy at a fair, sell at home.
10. There are more foolish buyers than foolish sellers.
11. The buyer needs a hundred eyes, the seller needs not one.
Chapter 29: Chance
1. Chance may win what mischance lost.
2. He who leaves nothing to chance will do little ill, but will do little anyway.
3. Something must be left to chance.
4. Too late to grieve when the chance is past.
5. He that waits on chance is never sure of his dinner.
6. Chance is always on the side of the prudent.
7. Chance and valour are blended in one.
8. Chance is another master.
9. Chance and justice are unequally matched.
10. Probabilities direct the conduct of the wise.
11. What chance made yours is not really yours.
12. Whom chance passes by, it finds them at last.
Chapter 30: Character
1. Character is easier kept than recovered.
2. Character is what you are in the dark.
3. No one climbs beyond the limits of character.
4. There is much unmapped territory within us.
5. People show their character by what they laugh at.
6. Character is nurtured amidst the tempests of the world.
7. Character is destiny.