Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)
Context: Low walls are much less expensive to build than high ones... it is possible to use forms without the usual waste of lumber... when waste is avoided, forms greatly reduce the cost of stonework... much can be saved in the construction of foundations by methods described...<!-- Introduction
L'homme est imparfait. Il est parfois plus ou moins hypocrite, et les niais disent alors qu'il a ou n'a pas de mœurs.
Part II.
Le Père Goriot (1835)
Variant: Man is imperfect. He is at some times more or less hypocritical than at others, and then simpletons say that his morality is high or low.
Source: Liberalism Ancient and Modern (1968), p. 225
Context: It is safer to try to understand the low in the light of the high than the high in the light of the low. In doing the latter one necessarily distorts the high, whereas in doing the former one does not deprive the low of the freedom to reveal itself as fully as what it is.
“3769. One may as much miss the Mark, by aiming too high, as too low.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
Birds (414 BC)
Context: Epops: You're mistaken: men of sense often learn from their enemies. Prudence is the best safeguard. This principle cannot be learned from a friend, but an enemy extorts it immediately. It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls and ships of war. And this lesson saves their children, their homes, and their properties.
Chorus [leader]: It appears then that it will be better for us to hear what they have to say first; for one may learn something at times even from one's enemies.
(tr. Anon. 1812 rev. in Ramage 1864, p. 45 http://books.google.com/books?id=AoUCAAAAQAAJ&pg;=PA45)
2010s, 2015, Presidential Bid Announcement (June 16, 2015)
“Owning a dog is slightly less expensive than being addicted to crack.”
Source: Bitter Is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass, Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office
“Too low they build who build beneath the stars.”
Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 206.
Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night VIII
