Book of Wise Sayings

Book of Wise Sayings

Selected Largely from Eastern Sources

By W. A. Clouston

OVER 508 WISE SAYINGS TO YOUR LIFE BY

Cynics may ask, how many have profited by the innumerable proverbs and maxims of prudence which have been current in the world time out of mind? They will say that their only use is to repeat them after some unhappy wight has "gone wrong." When, for instance, a man has played "ducks and drakes" with his money, the fact at once calls up the proverb which declares that "wilful waste leads to woful want"; but did not the "waster" know this well-worn saying from his early years downwards? What good, then, did it do him? Again, how many have been benefited by the saying of the ancient Greek poet, that "evil communications corrupt good manners"?--albeit they had it frequently before them in their school "copy-books." Are the maxims of morality useless, then, because they are so much disregarded?