Topics · Books, Art & Culture
Book Wisdom.
What people have learned about book wisdom the hard way, and what the classics said about it first.
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- Speak from experience. Say what you lived and what you learned. Advice without a story is easy to ignore.
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From the library
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
Energy is eternal delight.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
Vanity working on a weak head produces every sort of mischief.
Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.
The poetry of earth is never dead.
I exist as I am, that is enough.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
Tell me, O Muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide.
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark.
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high.
Water, water, every where, nor any drop to drink.
He who devotes himself to learning (seeks) from day to day to increase (his knowledge); he who devotes himself to the Tao (seeks) from day to day to diminish (his doing).
Nothing will come of nothing.
A great man is always willing to be little.
The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
Goodness is the only investment that never fails.
Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.
Because I could not stop for Death — He kindly stopped for me.
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.
I am large, I contain multitudes.
It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done.
When we renounce learning we have no troubles. The (ready) 'yes,' and (flattering) 'yea;'— Small is the difference they display. But mark their issues, good and ill;— What space the gulf between shall fill? What all men fear is indeed to be feared; but how wide and without end is the range of questions (asking to be discussed)!
Parting is such sweet sorrow.
The only way to have a friend is to be one.
What is now proved was once only imagined.
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.
Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath.
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense.
I celebrate myself, and sing myself.
Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.
All that glisters is not gold.
Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.
I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.
Fair is foul, and foul is fair.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.
No legacy is so rich as honesty.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.