Page:Gems of Chinese literature (1922).djvu/298

 More trees are upright, than men. Only imbeciles want credit for the achievements of their ancestors. Long visits bring short compliments. Deep people don’t say shallow things. A thousand pictures are not equal to one book. You can’t talk of the ocean to a well-frog. If you owe a man money, there is nothing like seeing him often. A quack will kill a man without a knife. Let the sovereign be thin so long as his subjects are fat. Some study shows the need for more. Better eighty per cent. ready money than cent. per cent. on trust. The highest towers begin from the ground. Medicine cures the man who is fated not to die. If a man has money, he will find plenty who have scales. Even the best artificial flowers have no smell. A thousand soldiers are easier to be got than one general. A thousand prescriptions are more readily forthcoming than a single cure. No needle is sharp at both ends. Straight trees are felled first. No image-maker worships the Gods. He knows what they are made of. Half an orange tastes as sweet as a whole one. Even the Yellow River is sometimes clear. We love our own compositions, but other men’s wives. Don’t pull up your shoe in a melon-field, nor adjust your hat under a plum-tree (i.e., avoid the appearance of evil). Free-sitters at the play always grumble most. Laugh and keep young. Happiness stands beside the ugly. A good memory is not equal to bad ink. With money―a dragon; without it―a worm.