The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [221]
3. Light-heeled mothers make leaden-heeled daughters.
4. Men are what their mothers make them.
5. Mothers’ darlings make milksop heroes.
6. The kick of the dam does not hurt the colt.
7. Mother love is always in its spring.
8. Who takes the child by the hand takes the mother by the heart.
9. Children are the anchors that hold their mothers to life.
10. A bustling mother makes a slothful child.
11. The mother’s breath is always sweet.
12. No mother has a homely child.
13. A mother’s wrath does not survive the night.
14. A mother will understand what her dumb child says.
15. When the child falls the mother weeps; when the mother falls the child laughs.
16. More than one mother can make a tasty soup.
17. Judge someone not by the words of his mother but by the comments of his neighbours.
Chapter 108: Nature
1. To know nature, consult nature.
2. It cannot be nature, if it is not sense.
3. Nature is the true law.
4. Nature obeys necessity.
5. Nature pardons no mistakes.
6. To command nature one must obey it.
7. The volume of nature is the book of knowledge.
8. Wisdom and nature never say different things.
9. Nature always returns.
10. Nature does nothing in vain.
Chapter 109: Necessity
1. Necessity breaks iron.
2. Necessity is the argument of tyrants and the creed of slaves.
3. Necessity makes an honest man a knave.
4. Necessity never makes a good bargain.
5. We do what we must, and call it by good names.
6. Necessity is a strict teacher.
7. Every act of necessity is disagreeable.
8. The wise never oppose necessity.
9. Necessity knows no shame.
Chapter 110: Opinion
1. Only little minds are alienated by differences of opinion.
2. Erroneous opinions can be tolerated where reason is free to combat them.
3. Opinion in good people is knowledge in the making.
4. So many heads, so many opinions.
5. A man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, which breeds reptiles.
6. Opinion is the queen of the world.
7. Those who never retract an opinion love themselves more than truth.
Chapter 111: Opportunity
1. Every opportunity grasped is two new opportunities made.
2. Hoist sail in a fair wind.
3. Opportunity seldom comes labelled.
4. Who seizes the right moment is the right person for the moment.
5. Know your opportunity.
Chapter 112: Pain
1. Where we feel pain we lay a hand.
2. An hour of pain is as long as a day of pleasure.
3. Great pain for little gain makes a man weary.
4. If pains be a pleasure, profit will follow.
5. Pain is forgotten when gain comes.
6. Those who do not feel pain seldom think others feel it.
7. There is a pleasure akin to pain.
8. No matter which finger you bite, it will hurt.
9. Nothing comes without pains except dirt and long nails.
Chapter 113: Patience
1. Grain by grain the hen fills her belly.
2. They who can have patience can have what they will.
3. How poor are those without patience.
4. Patience achieves more than force.
5. Patience is a plaster for all sores.
6. Patience opens every door.
7. Every misfortune is subdued by patience.
8. Patience provoked often turns to fury.
9. Be patient, and shuffle the cards.
10. With patience and time the mulberry becomes a silk gown.
Chapter 114: Peace
1. Peace breeds, strife consumes.
2. Better a lean peace than a fat victory.
3. By wisdom peace, by wisdom plenty.
4. Peace begins where ambition ends.
5. Peace has greater victories than war.
6. When people find no peace within, they will find it nowhere else.
Chapter 115: People
1. The mob has many heads but no brains.
2. The people pay with ingratitude.
3. The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.
4. To worship the people is to be worshipped.
5. Trust not the many-minded populace.
6. Nothing is so uncertain as the judgements of the mob.
7. It is easy to side with the crowd.
Chapter 116: Philanthropy
1. Mankind will not be reasoned out of the feeling of humanity.
2. We praise those who love their fellow human beings.
3. What good thing you do, do not defer it.
4. What is done for another is done