Work and Will

When Work and Will awake too late, to gaze
After their life sailed by, and hold their breath.
Ah! who shall dare search through what sad maze
Thenceforth with incommunicable ways
Follow the desultory feet of Death?

-Christina Rossetti

Fame

As fame hath often been dangerous to the living, so it is to the dead of no use at all.

- Sir Walter Raleigh

Advertising Sincerity

How unsound and insincere is he who says, I have determined to deal with thee in a fair way- what are they doing? There is no occasion to give this notice. It will soon show itself by acts. The voice ought to be plainly written on the forehead.

- Marcus Aurelius

An Error of Legislators

What leads legislators into... error is confounding sins and crimes together - making no difference between moral evil and state rebellion: not considering that a man might be infected with moral evil, and yet be guilty of no crime punishable by law.

- Jack Nips

Pleasure

Wits, just like fools, at war about a name,
Have full as oft no meaning, or the same.
Self-love and reason to one end aspire,
Pain their aversion, and pleasure their desire;
But greedy that, its object would devour,
This taste the honey, and not wound the flower:
Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood,
Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.

-Alexander Pope

Vanity

There are those among mankind, who can enjoy no relish of their being, except the world is made acquainted with all that relates to them, and think everything lost that passes unobserved.

-Sir Richard Steele

Spite

Since we cannot attain to greatness, let's have our revenge by railing against it.

-Sieur de Montaigne

On Force

Who overcomes by force, hath overcome but half his foe.

- John Milton, Paradise Lost

Orderly Confusion

I confess I can look for nothing 'other,' I can say no other than what a foolish Book expresseth, of one that having consulted everything, could hold to nothing; neither Fifth-Monarchy, Presbytery, nor Independency; nothing but at length concludes, He is for nothing but an "orderly confusion!" And for men that have wonderfully lost their consciences and their wits, - I speak of men going about who cannot tell what they would have, yet are willing to kindle coals to disturb others!

- Oliver Cromwell, Speech XVII

The Wisdom of Silence

Wisemen say nothing in dangerous times. The Lyon you knowe call'd the sheep to aske her if his breath smelt; shee said Yes: hee bitt off her head for a foole. He call'd the Wolfe & asked him; hee said Noe; he tore him in pieces for a flatterer. At last hee called the fox, and asked him: why, he had gott a cold and could not smell.

-John Seldon

Our Neighbor's Shame

"There is a lust in man no charm can tame,
Of loudly publishing his neighbor's shame."

Hence

"On eagle's wings immortal scandals fly,
While virtuous actions are but born and die."

-Dryden

Morality and Propriety

The nature of the difference between morality and propriety can be more easily felt than expressed. For whatever propriety may be, it is manifested only when there is a pre-existing moral rectitude.

-Cicero

Virtue

Virtues are, in the popular estimate, rather the exception than the rule. There is the man and his virtues. Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world,-as invalids and the insane pay high board. Their virtues are penances.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

John the Scot

While dinning one evening, Jon the Scot was seated across the table from King Charles the Bald. In a moment of merriment, the king asked Jon, "what is the difference between a sot and a Scot?"

"Only the table" replied Jon.

- An anecdote from William of Malmesbury, The Bishops of England.

Universal Idiocy

There is no difficulty in proving any ethical standard whatever to work ill, if we suppose universal idiocy to be conjoined with it.

- John Stuart Mill

A Youth

When a youth was giving himself airs in the Theatre and saying, "I am wise, for I have have conversed with many wise men," Epictetus replied, "I too have conversed with many rich men, yet I am not rich!"

- Marcus Aurelius

Running an Army

An army cannot be run according to the rules of etiquette.

-Sun Tzu