Hitopadesa._

95.

That energy which veils itself in mildness is most effective of its
object.

_Magha._

96.

Our writings are like so many dishes, our readers, our guests, our
books, like beauty--that which one admires another rejects; so we
are approved as men's fancies are inclined.... As apothecaries, we
make new mixtures every day, pour out of one vessel into another;
and as those old Romans robbed all cities of the world to set out
their bad-cited Rome, we skim off the cream of other men's wits,
pick the choice flowers of their tilled gardens, to set out our own
sterile plots. We weave the same web still, twist the same rope
again and again; or, if it be a new invention, 'tis but some bauble
or toy, which idle fellows write, for as idle fellows to read.[8]

_Burton._

[8] Ferriar has pointed out, in his _Illustrations of
Sterne_, how these passages from Burton's _Anatomy of
Melancholy_ have been boldly plagiarised in the
introduction to the fragment on Whiskers in _Tristram
Shandy_: "Shall we for ever make new books as
apothecaries make new mixtures, by only pouring out of
one vessel into another? Are we for ever to be twisting
and untwisting the same rope?" And Dr. Johnson, who was
a great admirer of Burton, adopts the illustration of
the plundering Romans in his _Rambler_, No. 143.

97.

It is our follies that make our lives uncomfortable. Our errors of
opinion, our cowardly fear of the world's worthless censure, and our
eagerness after unnecessary gold have hampered the way of virtue,
and made it far more difficult than, in itself, it is.

_Feltham._

98.

There is not half so much danger in the desperate sword of a known
foe as in the smooth insinuations of a pretended friend.

_R. Chamberlain._

99.

Nothing is so oppressive as a secret; it is difficult for ladies to
keep it long, and I know even in this matter a good number of men
who are women.

_La Fontaine._

100.

All kinds of beauty do not inspire love: there is a kind of it which
pleases only the sight, but does not captivate the affections.