The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [216]
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.