"Long-tried friends are friends to cleave to—never leave thou these i' the lurch: What man shuns the fire as sinful for that once it burned a church?"
"Raise an evil soul to honour, and his evil bents remain; Bind a cur's tail ne'er so straightly, yet it curleth up again."
"How, in sooth, should Trust and Honour change the evil nature's root? Though one watered them with nectar, poison-trees bear deadly fruit."
"Safe within the husk of silence guard the seed of counsel so That it break not—being broken, then the seedling will not grow."
"Even as one who grasps a serpent, drowning in the bitter sea,
Death to hold and death to loosen—such is life's perplexity."
"Woman's love rewards the worthless—kings of knaves exalters be;
Wealth attends the selfish niggard, and the cloud rains on the sea."
"Many a knave wins fair opinions standing in fair company,
As the sooty soorma pleases, lighted by a brilliant eye."
"Where the azure lotus blossoms, there the alligators hide;
In the sandal-tree are serpents. Pain and pleasure live allied."