We can give advice, but we can’t give conduct. The advice of fools is worthless. The adviser may give you a helping hand to the poorhouse. If you can’t take advice, you can’t be helped. What the poor need is less advice and more helping hands.
Advice is something the wise don‘t need and fools won’t take. When a thing is done advice comes too late. Afflictions are sometimes blessings in disguise. The young may die; the old must die. At 20 years of age the will reigns; at 30 the wit; at 40 the judgment.
One is as old as one’s heart. Age breeds aches. Two dogs over one bone seldom agree. Water afar does not quench a fire at home. “Almost made it,” never made the grade. “Almost,” never killed a fly.
Alms are the golden key that opens the gates of Heaven. No one becomes poor through giving alms. There is nothing humbler than ambition when it is about to climb. The higher they rise, the steeper they fall. Equal rights for all, but special privileges should be for none.
Remember the roots of your family tree, but you are known by your fruit, not by your root. Even the devil was an angel in the beginning. Man was created a little lower than the angels. Some have been getting a little lower ever since. Take this remark from Richard, poor and lame: What ever is begun in anger, ends in shame.
Anger’s final resting place is the bosom of fools. Anger is a brief madness but it can do damage that lasts forever. To be angry is to punish yourself for another’s sins. Anger is like a stone thrown at a hornets nest. If you look at your brother’s faults you get angry; if you overlook them, you get the grace of Heaven.
The angry beggar gets a stone instead of a handout. The angry man opens his mouth and shuts his eyes. Anger is never without reason, but seldom with a good one. A nation that forgets its past has no future. Churchill If you don’t understand why someone is grieving so much and for so long then consider yourself fortunate that you do not understand.
Man is the only animal that can be skinned more than once. A soft answer turns away wrath. Silence is the best answer to a fool. No one preaches better than the ant, and it says nothing. An ant may work its heart out, but it cannot make honey.
Some men are born anvils, others are born hammers. If you are an anvil, be patient; if you are a hammer, strike hard. The anvil last longer than the hammer. You can’t know a girl by her looks or a man by his books. Be what you appear to be. Appearance is deceiving. All that glitters is not gold.