after a political dispute: "Gentlemen, you see how stout
I am. Well, I have a wife at home who is still stouter.
Now, when we are good friends, we can sit together on a
very small couch; but when we quarrel, I do assure you,
the whole house cannot contain us."--_Athenaeus_, xii.

The place honours not the man; it is the man who gives honour to the
place.

Few are they who see their own faults.[104]

[104] Compare Burns:

O wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!

Thy friend has a friend, and thy friend's friend has a friend: be
discreet.[105]

[105] See the Persian aphorisms on revealing secrets, _ante_,
p. 48.--Burns, in his "Epistle to a Young Friend," says:

Aye free aff hand your story tell
When wi' a bosom crony,
But still keep something to yoursel'
Ye scarcely tell to ony.

Poverty sits as gracefully upon some people as a red saddle upon a white
horse.

Rather be thou the tail among lions than the head among foxes.[106]

[106] The very reverse of our English proverb, "Better to be
the head of the commonalty than the tail of the gentry."

The thief who finds no opportunity to steal considers himself an honest
man.

Use thy noble vase to-day, for to-morrow it may perchance be broken.

Descend a step in choosing thy wife; ascend a step in choosing thy
friend.

A myrtle even in the dust remains a myrtle.[107]

[107] Saadi has the same sentiment in his _Gulislan_--see
_ante_, p. 49.

Every one whose wisdom exceedeth his deeds, to what is he like? To a
tree whose branches are many and its roots few; and the wind cometh and
plucketh it up, and overturneth it on its face.[108]

[108] See also Saadi's aphorisms on precept and practice,
_ante_, p. 47.

If a word spoken in time be worth one piece of money, silence in its
place is worth two.[109]

[109] Here we have a variant of Thomas Carlyle's favourite
maxim, "Speech is silvern; silence is golden."

Silence is the fence round wisdom.[110]

[110] "Nothing is so good for an ignorant man as silence; and
if he were sensible of this he would not be
ignorant."--_Saadi_.

A saying ascribed to Esop has been frequently cited with admiration. The
sage Chilo asked Esop what God was doing, and he answered that he was
"depressing the proud and exalting the humble.