Fern Naito

There be three things which make a nation great and prosperous: a fertile soil, busy workshops, easy conveyance for men and goods from place to place.

Go fish and hunt far and wide day by day – farther and wider – and rest thee by many brooks and hearth-sides without misgiving. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures. Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no larger fields than these, no worthier games than may here be played.

Drunkenness spoils health, dismounts the mind, and unmans man. It reveals secrets, is quarrelsome, lascivious, impudent, dangerous, and mad.

Courtesy Life be not so short but that there is always time for courtesy.

I have been breaking silence these twenty-three years and have hardly made a rent in it.

The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes in its milk, on the principle that it is cheaper to do this than to keep a cow. So it is, but the milk is more likely to be watered.

Half a man’s wisdom goes with his courage.

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.

Slavery is an institution for converting men into monkeys.

How earthy old people become moldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks of the earth. There is no foretaste of immortality in it. They remind me of earthworms and mole crickets.

Hell is paved with good intentions, not with bad ones. All men mean well.

In heaven an angel is no one in particular.

Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants.

Justice delayed is justice denied.

Which is worse? The wolf who cries before eating the lamb or the wolf who does not.