If You Desire To Be Magnanimous, Undertake

To Fear Death Is The Way To Live Long; To Lie Afraid Of Death Is To Be Long A Dying.

Thy Pride Is But The Prologue Of Thy Shame; Where Vain-glory Commands, There Folly Counsels; Where Pride Rides, There Shame Lackeys.

The World Is Deceitful; Her End Is Doubtful, Her Conclusion Is Horrible, Her Judge Terrible, And Her Judgment Is Intolerable.

Yet, Sluggard, Wake, And Gull Thy Soul No More With Earth's False Pleasures, And The World's Delight, Whose Fruit Is Fair And Pleasing To The Sight, But Sour In Taste, False As The Putrid Core: Thy Flaring Glass Is Gems At Her Half Light; She Makes Thee Seeming Rich, But Truly Poor: She Boasts A Kernel, And Bestows A Shell; Performs An Inch Of Her Fair-promis'd Ell: Her Words Protest A Heav'n; Her Works Produce A Hell.

Read Not Books Alone, But Men, And Amongst Them Chiefly Thyself. If Thou Find Anything Questionable There, Use The Commentary Of A Severe Friend, Rather Than The Gloss Of A Sweet-lipped Flatterer There Is More Profit In A Distasteful Truth Than In Deceitful Sweetness.