HONESTY. RICH honesty Dwells like a miser, sir, in a poor house; As your pearl in your foul oyster. As You Like It. CLEAR and round dealing is the honour of man's nature, and mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it: for these windings and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent; which goeth basely upon the belly and not on the feet. BACON. Queen Eliz. AN honest tale speeds best being plainly told. Richard III. BEAUTY. A BEAUTIFUL face is a silent commendation. BEAUTY, tho' injurious, hath strange power, BEAUTY is but a vain and doubtful good, † MILTON. SHAKSPEARE, POOR as it is, this beauty was the cause Upon the wings of time borne swift away. Pass but some fleeting years, and these poor eyes *If to her share some female errors fall, Look in her face and you'll forget them all. POPE. Rape of the Lock. + Beauty is like summer fruit, easily corrupted and not lasting. It often renders Youth dissolute and Age penitent; but if well placed makes Virtues shine, and Vices blush. BACON. Essays. (Where now without a boast some lustre lies) And on this forehead where your verse has said TRUST not, sweet soul, those curl'd waves of gold Nor voice, whose sounds more strange effects do show Dark hyacinth, of late whose blushing beams The cruel tyrant that did kill those flow'rs, AH! yet doth beauty, like a dial hand, DRUMMOND. So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, SHAKSPEARE. Sonnets. DIFFIDENCE and presumption upon account of our persons, are equally faults, and both arise from the want of knowing or rather endeavouring to know ourselves and for what we ought to be valued or neglected. Spectator, No. 87. WHAT'S female beauty, but an air divine, * Liking is not always the child of beauty; but whatsoever is liked, to the liker is beautiful. Sir P. SIDNEY. Some forms, tho' bright, no mortal man can bear; To Ianthe. YOUNG. Nor in those climes where I have late been straying, Forms which it sighs but to have only dream'd, Hath aught like thee in truth or fancy seem'd: Nor having seen thee, shall I vainly seek To paint those charms which varied as they beam'd; To those who gaze on thee what language could they speak. AN outward gift which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused. GIBBON. Decline and Fall, Chap. 50. As it is an argument of a light mind to think the worse of ourselves for the imperfections of our persons, it is equally below us to value ourselves upon the advantages of them. GIVE me instead of Beauty's bust, A tender heart, a loyal mind, Spectator, No. 53. Which with temptation I would trust, One in whose gentle bosom I My earthly comforter! whose love That when my spirit wonn'd above, ANON. HASTE. IN desire, expedition itself is delay. SIR AMYAS PAWLET, when he saw too much haste made in any matter, used to say, Stay a while, that we may make an end the sooner. Now there is nothing gives a man such spirits And merely for the sake of its own merits; For the less cause there is for all this flurry, At the great end of travel—which is driving. DESPATCH. Don Juan, Canto 10. To choose time is to save time; and an unseasonable motion is but beating the air. There be three parts of business: the preparation; the debate or examination; and the perfection; whereof, if you look for despatch, let the middle only be the work of many, and the first and last the work of few. BACON. DEAFNESS. SHE was deaf as a stone—say one of the stones And surely deafness no further could reach Than to be in his mouth without hearing his speech! For what can be a greater privation There was Mrs. F., That she might have worn a percussion-cap, And been knocked on the head without hearing it snap; She heard from her husband at Botany Bay! HOOD. Tale of a Trumpet. It is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal. (Falstaff to the Lord Chief Justice.) Henry IV., Second Part. FOOLS. Clown. WELL, God give them wisdom that have it ; And those that are fools, let them use their talents. Twelfth Night. Viola. I saw thee late at the Count Orsino's. Clown. Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb; like the sun, it shines everywhere. I would be sorry, sir, but the fool should be as oft with your master as with my mistress: I think I saw your wisdom there. Twelfth Night, Act III. Jacques. O WORTHY fool!—one that has been a courtier ; And says, if ladies be but young and fair, They have the gift to know it: and in his brain, After a voyage,—he hath strange places cramm'd In mangled forms :-0, that I were a fool! I am ambitious for a motley coat. As You Like It, Act II. To succeed in the world it is much more necessary to possess the penetration to discover who is a fool than to discover who is a clever man." * WHY will mankind be fools, and be deceived? CONGREVE. He must be a thorough fool who can learn nothing from his own folly. HARE. Guesses at Truth. I LOOK upon them not as paying visits but visitations. FITZOSBORNE. Letters. *This aphorism is Cato's, who said— That wise men learn'd more by fools |