Don't you go believing in sayings, Picotee: they are all made by men, for their own advantages. Women who use public proverbs as a guide through events are those who have not ingenuity enough to make private ones as each event occurs.
|
Geng Lei was a famous archer of the state of Wei. One day while he was on an excursion outside the city with the King of Wei, he saw a bird circling in the sky. The King asked him to down the goose with an arrow. He answered: I don't have to use an arrow. I can just make the bird fall down from the sky with my arch. Do you have that marvellous skill? asked the King. Presently they saw the wild goose flying from the east. Geng Ying twanged the string of his bow and indeed the wild goose at once dropped to the ground in front of them. You're really a wonderful archer, said the King with approval. Geng Lei said, This is a wounded wild goose. From its desolate cry and tired flight you can see its wound has not yet healed. When it heard the twang of my bow-string, it thought it was again hit by an arrow and fell from the sky.
|
Walk tall as the trees, live strong as the mountains, be gentle as the spring winds, keep the warmth of the summer sun in your heart, and the great spirit will always be with you.
|
Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
|
A brave man dies but once, a coward many times.
|
The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears.
|
It is the nature of aphoristic thinking to be always in a state of concluding; a bid to have the final word is inherent in all powerful phrase-making.
|
The bird who has eaten cannot fly with the bird that is hungry.
|
What is all wisdom save a collection of platitudes. Take fifty of our current proverbial sayings-- they are so trite, so threadbare. None the less they embody the concentrated experience of the race, and the man who orders his life according to their teachings cannot be far wrong. Has any man ever attained to inner harmony by pondering the experience of others? Not since the world began! He must pass through fire.
|
What is all wisdom save a collection of platitudes? Take fifty of our current proverbial sayings -- they are so trite, so threadbare, that we can hardly bring our lips to utter them. None the less they embody the concentrated experience of the race and the man who orders his life according to their teaching cannot go far wrong.
|
Exclusively of the abstract sciences, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms: and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism.
|
As the Arab proverb says, The dog barks and the caravan passes. After having dropped this quotation, Mr. Norpois stopped to judge the effect it had on us. It was great; the proverb was known to us: it had been replaced that year among men of high worth by this other: Whoever sows the wind reaps the storm, which had needed some rest since it was not as indefatigable and hardy as, Working for the King of Prussia.
|
It is easy to be brave from a distance.
|
If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies in yourself.
|
Walk lightly in the spring; Mother Earth is pregnant.
|
A good soldier is a poor scout.
|
An aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog.
|
You already possess everything necessary to become great.
|
The reason for the slow progress of the world seems to lie in a single fact. Every man is born under the yoke, and grows up beneath the oppressions of his age. He can only get a vision of the unselfish forces in the world by appealing to them, and every appeal is a call to arms. If he fights he must fight, not one man, but a conspiracy. He is always at war with a civilization. On his side is proverbial philosophy, a galaxy of invisible saints and sages, and the half-developed consciousness and professions of everybody. Against him is the world, and every selfish passion in his own heart.
|
In age, talk; in childhood, tears.
|
What is a epigram? A dwarfish whole. Its body brevity, and wit its soul.
|
The Republicans stroke platitudes until they purr like epigrams.
|
What is all wisdom save a collection of platitudes? Take fifty of our current proverbial sayings—they are so trite, so threadbare, that we c...
|
Most of us do not look as handsome to others as we do to ourselves.
|
No people require maxims so much as the American. The reason is obvious: the country is so vast, the people always going somewhere, from Oregon apple valley to boreal New England, that we do not know whether to be temperate orchards or sterile climate.
|
A proverb is much matter distilled into few words.
|
Do not wrong or hate your neighbor for it is not he that you wrong but yourself.
|
Although none of the rules for becoming more alive is valid, it is healthy to keep on formulating them.
|
One rain does not make a crop.
|
Epigrams succeed where epics fail.
|