Book of Wise Sayings: Selected Largely from Eastern Sources by W. A. Clouston.

Author of “Popular Tales and Fictions,” “Literary Coincidences, and other Papers,” “Flowers from a Persian Garden,” etc.

“Concise sentences, like darts, fly abroad and make impressions, while long discourses are tedious and not regarded.”—Bacon.

“Many are the sayings of the wise, In ancient and in modern books enrolled.”—Milton.

In the following small selection of aphorisms, a considerable proportion are drawn from Eastern literature. Includes passages from the Indian epics.

In more modern times, with the sole exception of William Hazlitt, our country has produced no very successful writer of aphorisms. Colton’s Lacon; or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think, went through several editions soon after its first publication in 1820.