Book of Wise Sayings

Selected Largely from Eastern Sources

When a man has reached middle-age he generally feels with tenfold force the truth of those "sayings of the wise" which he learned in his early years, and has cause to regret, as well as wonder, that he had not all along followed their wholesome teaching. For it is to the young, who are about to cross the threshold of active life, that such terse convincing sentences are more especially addressed, and, spite of the proverbial heedlessness of youth, there will be found many who are not deaf to this kind of instruction, if their moral environment be favourable. But, even after the spring-time of youth is past, there are occasions when the mind is peculiarly susceptible to the force of a pithy maxim, which may tend to the reforming of one's way of life. There is commonly more practical wisdom in a striking aphorism than in a round dozen of "goody" books--that is to say, books which are not good in the highest sense, because their themes are overlaid with commonplace and wearisome reflections.

William Alexander Clouston (1843-1896) was a British folklorist, writer, and journalist who translated a variety of poetic and philosophical works into English.