The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [223]
7. Chance fights on the side of the prudent.
8. Prudence keeps life safe, but does not always make it happy.
Chapter 126: Reason
1. Listen to reason, or it will make itself felt.
2. Reason rules the wise and cudgels the fool.
3. What reason weaves, passion undoes.
4. Few have strength enough to follow reason all the way.
5. Reason does not come before years.
6. Nothing is lasting when reason does not rule.
7. Reason is the lamp of life.
8. Reason panders to will.
Chapter 127: Reputation
1. A good name keeps its lustre in the dark.
2. A good reputation is a fair estate.
3. A wounded reputation is seldom cured.
4. Better not named than ill spoken of.
Chapter 128: Resolution
1. Be resolved and the thing is done.
2. Never tell your resolution beforehand.
3. Set a stout heart to a steep hill.
Chapter 129: Revenge
1. Revenge never comes too late.
2. Those who meditate revenge keep their own wounds green.
3. They meditate revenge who least complain.
4. It costs more to revenge injuries than to bear them.
5. Living well is the best revenge.
6. The noblest vengeance is to forgive.
7. Revenge may have leaden feet, but strikes with iron hands.
8. Revenge is a fruit best left to ripen.
9. Revenge is a confession of pain.
Chapter 130: Riches
1. People are rich in proportion to the number of things they do not need.
2. They are not fit for riches who are afraid to use them.
3. Where wealth accumulates, people decay.
4. Better to live rich than die rich.
5. The rich have no faults.
6. Riches are got with pain, kept with care, and lost with grief.
7. Superfluous wealth can only buy superfluities.
8. The pride of the rich makes the labours of the poor.
9. The rich person’s wealth is the greatest enemy of his health.
10. Wealth is a good servant and a bad master.
11. Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.
12. Rich people are at home everywhere.
13. A golden bit does not make a better horse.
14. They most enjoy riches who least need them.
15. The foolish sayings of the rich pass for wisdom.
Chapter 131: Right
1. Right wrongs no one.
2. The greatest right is the right to be wrong.
3. We are not satisfied to be right unless we prove others to be wrong.
4. Better do right without thanks than wrong without punishment.
Chapter 132: Self-control
1. They are strong who conquer others, they are mighty who conquer themselves.
2. Few are fit to be entrusted to themselves.
Chapter 133: Shame
1. Shame lasts longer than poverty.
2. Where there is shame, in time there may be grace.
3. Who is lost to shame is lost.
4. Who has no shame owns the world.
5. In the land of the naked, clothes make shame.
Chapter 134: Silence
1. Speech is often repented, silence rarely.
2. Even silence may be eloquent.
3. He is not a fool who knows how to keep silent.
4. Silence catches a mouse.
5. The wise say nothing in dangerous times.
6. The silence of the people is a warning to the king.
7. Beware a silent dog and still water.
8. Silence is strength.
9. Silent people are dangerous.
Chapter 135: Success
1. Life begins only in success.
2. Nothing is so impudent as success.
3. Success alters manners.
4. Success is never blamed.
5. Success is the child of audacity.
6. Success makes a fool seem wise.
7. Many fail where one succeeds.
8. Success has many friends.
Chapter 136: Teaching
1. Better untaught than ill taught.
2. They teach ill who teach all.
3. Let them love the doctrine for the teacher’s sake.
4. To teach is to learn.
Chapter 137: Temptation
1. An open box tempts an honest person.
2. A bad padlock invites a picklock.
3. I was taken by a morsel, says the fish.
4. It is easy to keep a castle that was never assaulted.
5. Do not tempt a desperate person.
6. The less the temptation, the greater the crime.
7. Who is worse, tempter or tempted?
Chapter 138: Thieves
1. A thief thinks everyone steals.
2. A thief knows a thief as a wolf knows a wolf.
3. The thief is a gentleman when stealing has made him rich.
4. Call someone