Proverbial Philosophy / The First and Second Series

by Unknown

But, if thou nourish in thy heart the reveries of injury or passion,

And travel in mental heat the mazy labyrinths of guilt,

And then conceive it possible, and then reflect on it as done,

And use, by little and little, thyself to regard thyself a villain,

Not long will crime be absent from the voice that doth invoke him to thy heart,

And bitterly wilt thou grieve, that the buds have ripened into poison.

A spark is a molecule of matter, yet may it kindle the world:

Vast is the mighty ocean, but drops have made it vast.

Despise not thou a small thing, either for evil or for good;

For a look may work thy ruin, or a word create thy wealth: