Envy is a vice that would pose a man to tell what it should be liked for. Other vices we assume for that we falsely suppose they bring us either pleasure, profit, or honour. But in envy who is it can find any of these? Instead of pleasure, we vex and gall ourselves. Like cankered brass, it only eats itself, nay, discolours and renders it noisome. When some one told Agis that those of his neighbour's family did envy him, "Why, then," says he, "they have a double vexation--one, with their own evil, the other, at my prosperity."
Feltham.
526.
The most silent people are generally those who think most highly of themselves. They fancy themselves superior to every one else, and, not being sure of making good their secret pretensions, decline entering the lists altogether. Thus they "lay the flattering unction to their souls" that they could have said better things than others, or that the conversation was beneath them.
Hazlitt.
527.
It is commonly a dangerous thing for a man to have more sense than his neighbours. Socrates paid for his superiority with his life; and if Aristotle saved his skin, accused as he was of heresy by the chief priest Eurymedon, it was because he took to his heels in time.
Wieland.
528.
Flattery may be considered as a mode of companionship, degrading but profitable to him who flatters.
Theophrastus.
529.
Rich presents, though profusely given, Are not so dear to righteous Heaven As gifts by honest gains supplied, Though small, which faith hath sanctified.
Mahábhárata.
530.
To-day is thine to spend, but not to-morrow; Counting on morrows breedeth bankrupt sorrow: O squander not this breath that Heaven hath lent thee; Make not too sure another breath to borrow.
Omar Khayyám.
531.
Leave not the business of to-day to be done to-morrow; for who knoweth what may be thy condition to-morrow? The rose-garden, which to-day is full of flowers, when to-morrow thou wouldst pluck a rose, may not afford thee one.
Firdausí.
532.
Virtue beameth from a generous spirit as light from the moon, or as brilliancy from Jupiter.
Nizámí.
533.
The worth of a horse is known by its speed, the value of oxen by their carrying power, the worth of a cow by its milk-giving capacity, and that of a wise man by his speech.
Burmese.
534.
Men of genius are often dull and inert in society, as the blazing meteor when it descends to earth is only a stone.
Longfellow.
535.
If a man die young he hath left us at dinner; it is bed-time with a man of three score and ten; and he that lives a hundred years hath walked a mile after supper. This life is but one day of three meals, or one meal of three courses--childhood, youth, and old age. To sup well is to live well, and that's the way to sleep well.
Overbury.
536.
There is nothing keeps longer than a middling fortune, and nothing melts away sooner than a great one. Poverty treads upon the heels of great and unexpected riches.
La Bruyère.
537.
Society is a more level surface than we imagine. Wise men or absolute fools are hard to be met with, as there are few giants or dwarfs. The heaviest charge we can bring against the general texture of society is that it is commonplace. Our fancied superiority to others is in some one thing which we think most of because we excel in it, or have paid most attention to it; whilst we overlook their superiority to us in something else which they set equal and exclusive store by.
Hazlitt.
538.
