Court-virtues bear, like gems, the highest rate,
Born where Heav'n influence scarce can penetrate.
In life's low vale, the soil the virtues like,
They please as beauties, here as wonders strike.
The bookful blockhead ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head, With his own tongue still edifies his ears, And always list'ning to himself appears. All books he reads, and all he reads assails.
To buy books as some do who make no use of them, only because they were published by an eminent printer, is much as if a man should buy clothes that did not fit him, only because they were made by some famous tailor.
To pardon those absurdities in ourselves which we cannot suffer in others is neither better nor worse than to be more willing to be fools ourselves than to have others so.
A person who is too nice an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.
Thus unlamented pass the proud away,
The gaze of fools and pageant of a day;
So perish all, whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow
For others' good, or melt at others' woe.
Of all the causes which conspire to blind Man's erring judgement, and misguide the mind, What the weak head with strongest bias rules, Is PRIDE, the never-failing vice of fools.