“It is with human nature as with wines: age sweetens some and sours others.”
“Happiness and misery both come in doubles.”
“Going through college doesn’t mean that the college has gone through you.”
“You can lead a boy to the right book, the rest depends on himself.”
“The deeper the water, the slower the stream.”
“It is easier to escape a splinter that you see, than a beam that you don’t see.”
“Familiarity takes the height off a mountain.”
“Wit may purchase wealth, but wealth can not purchase wit.”
“Originality can go so far back that it becomes aboriginality.”
“Your parents died when you were a child,” is the bitterly sarcastic way in which the Chinese express that one has no manners, or up-bringing. The following repartee is credited to almost every traveled Chinese official, but it originated in the imagination of an Occidental wit, because the Chinese consider manners and forgiveness the first rule of public conduct. Official Bu was asked by an impertinent Occidental why he wore such a ludicrous appendage as a queue. “Why do you wear a mustache?” asked the Oriental, “Because I’ve such an awful mouth.” “I thought so, from your first question,” was the Oriental’s rejoinder.