The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [215]
5. One father might support ten children, but ten children rarely support one father.
6. One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.
7. A father loves his children in hating their faults.
8. He that has his father for judge goes safely to trial.
Chapter 68: Fault
1. A fault denied is twice committed.
2. Everyone blames their faults on the times.
3. He is faultless to a fault.
4. Faults are thick where love is thin.
5. Faults done by night blush by day.
6. They are lifeless who are faultless.
7. In every fault there is folly.
8. People hate faults they do not themselves commit.
9. The greatest fault is to be conscious of none.
10. Those who seek only faults, find nothing else.
11. The hunchback sees only his neighbour’s hump.
12. We never confess our faults except through vanity.
13. The fault of another is a good teacher to an apt pupil.
14. Who desires a faultless mule must walk.
15. Let a fault be concealed by its nearness to a virtue.
Chapter 69: Fear
1. Fear is the mother of safety and the father of courage.
2. They who fear you present, will hate you absent.
3. Fear is the parent of cruelty.
4. Fear is stronger than love.
5. Fear springs from ignorance.
6. Fear kills more than disease.
7. Foolish fear doubles danger.
8. Share your courage, keep your fear to yourself.
9. Nothing is as rash as fear.
10. Nothing is terrible except fear itself.
11. The fearless man is his own salvation.
12. To fear the worst can cure the worse.
13. Fear tames lions.
14. If many fear you, fear the many.
15. Fear does not guard duty.
16. Fear makes people believe the worst.
17. Fear, not mercy, restrains the wicked.
18. Fear feels no pity when extreme danger threatens.
19. It is torment to fear what cannot be overcome.
20. Terror closes the ears and eyes.
Chapter 70: Flattery
1. A flatterer is one who either despises you or wishes to cheat you.
2. Flattery corrupts both the giver and the receiver.
3. Flatterers look as much like friends as wolves look like dogs.
4. Flattery is perfume, to be smelt not swallowed.
5. Flattery sits in the parlour while plain speech is kicked out of doors.
6. They put honey in their mouths who have none in their pot.
7. Who loves to be flattered is worthy of the flatterer.
8. Friend and flatterer do not meet in the same person.
9. More flies are caught with a drop of honey than a lake of vinegar.
10. It is easier to flatter than praise.
11. A flatterer is a secret enemy.
12. Who paints me before, blackens me behind.
13. Who delight in being flattered, later pay by regret.
14. Flattery is so much bird lime.
15. Let anyone daub you with honey and you will never lack flies.
16. Better flatter fools than fight them.
Chapter 71: Folly
1. Folly has the wings of an eagle and the eyes of an owl.
2. Folly grows without watering.
3. Folly makes itself sick.
4. Happy those who learn from their youthful follies.
5. If folly were grief, every house would weep.
6. If others had not been foolish, we would be.
7. It is folly to drown on dry land.
8. It is folly to try to buy reputation.
9. It is folly to sing twice to the deaf.
10. One person’s folly is another’s fortune.
11. Who live without folly are not as wise as they think.
12. Folly is self-inflicted misfortune.
13. It is better to advise folly than punish it.
14. Wealth excuses folly.
15. The shame lies not in one’s folly, but in not learning from it.
Chapter 72: Fools
1. The fool’s mind dances on the tip of his tongue.
2. Fools are like other people as long as they are silent.
3. A fool may ask more questions in an hour than the wise can answer in seven years.
4. Fools are sometimes right.
5. A fool does not see the same tree as the wise.
6. A fool’s tongue is long enough to cut his own throat.
7. A rich fool is a wise person’s treasurer.
8. Everyone is a fool sometimes, and none is a fool always.
9. Everyone has a fool in his sleeve.
10. A fool is one who deals with fools.
11. Fools bite each other, where the wise agree.
12. Fools cut their fingers, the wise