The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [222]
5. Only those live who do good.
Chapter 117: Philosophy
1. Philosophy is the sweet milk of adversity.
2. Clarity is the sincerity of philosophers.
3. Philosophy is doubt.
4. Let philosophers be wise for themselves.
5. Philosophy does the going, and wisdom is the goal.
6. Philosophy is the mother of the arts.
7. The true medicine of the mind is philosophy.
8. To enjoy freedom, be the slave of philosophy.
Chapter 118: Pleasure
1. If you long for pleasure you must labour to get it.
2. After pleasant scratching comes painful smarting.
3. Fly the pleasure that bites tomorrow.
4. Follow pleasure and it will flee, flee pleasure and it will follow.
5. For one pleasure a thousand griefs are proved.
6. Pleasure makes hours short.
7. Pleasure is the greatest incentive to vice.
8. Rarity gives zest to pleasure.
9. There is no pleasure unalloyed.
Chapter 119: Politics
1. All politicians die by swallowing their own lies.
2. The honest politician is the one who, when bought, stays bought.
3. Few politicians die, and none resign.
4. Politicians neither love nor hate.
5. Old politicians chew on past wisdom.
6. Party is the madness of the many for the gain of the few.
7. There is no gambling like politics.
8. Vain hope, to make people happy by politics.
9. When great questions end, little parties begin.
10. Office shows the person.
Chapter 120: Poverty
1. Those guilty of poverty easily suspect themselves.
2. Who licks his knife has little for others.
3. Who has a low door must stoop.
4. It is easier to praise poverty than to bear it.
5. Poverty, not will, consents.
6. Poverty is not a vice but an inconvenience.
7. Poverty is the mother of health.
8. Poverty is the worst guard of chastity.
9. There is no virtue that poverty cannot destroy.
10. Poverty is the mother of crime.
11. Riches follow poverty better than poverty follows riches.
12. Light purse, heavy heart.
13. Poverty is a kind of leprosy.
14. The poor are never free.
15. Poverty is never believed, though speaking truth.
16. Contented poverty is an honourable estate.
17. Little goods, little cares.
18. It is natural for the poor to count their sheep.
19. Money moves slowly towards poverty.
20. There are many things the ragged dare not say.
21. To have nothing is not poverty.
22. Poverty is a shirt of fire.
Chapter 121: Power
1. If you would have power, pretend to have power.
2. Increase of power leads to increase of wealth.
3. Power weakens the wicked.
4. The greater the power, the more dangerous its abuse.
5. Power corrupts.
6. Partnership with power is never safe.
7. Power acquired by guilt is never used for good.
Chapter 122: Praise
1. A man’s praise stinks in his own mouth.
2. All praise their own wares.
3. Faint praise is abuse.
4. Who loves praise loves temptation.
5. Let all praise the bridge they go over.
6. Praises are wages.
7. Praise makes good men better and bad men worse.
8. Undeserved praise is satire.
9. In doing what we ought we deserve no praise.
10. Unless new praise arises, the old is lost.
11. One has only to die to be praised.
12. The refusal of praise is the desire to be twice praised.
Chapter 123: Prosperity
1. Prosperity reveals vice, adversity virtue.
2. Prosperity is a great teacher, adversity a greater.
3. Prosperity lets go the bridle.
4. Prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them.
5. The rich are never sure that they are loved for themselves.
Chapter 124: Proverbs
1. Proverbs are the daughters of experience.
2. A proverb is a short sentence formed of long experience.
3. There is no proverb which is untrue.
4. A short saying often contains much wisdom.
5. A proverb is the wit of one and the wisdom of many.
6. Patch grief with proverbs.
7. Proverbs lie on the lips of fools.
8. The wise make proverbs and fools repeat them.
Chapter 125: Prudence
1. The prudent seldom err.
2. Commend the sea, but keep ashore.
3. Who walks barefoot must not plant thorns.
4. Always have two irons in the fire.
5. Precaution is better than cure.
6.