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“They invite me up and down to feasts, if I have only need of a slight breakfast: my faithful friend is he who will give me one loaf when he has but two.
Whilst we live, let us live well: for be
a man never so rich, when he lights his
fire, Death may perhaps enter his door,
before it be burnt out.
“It is better to have a son late than
never. One seldom sees sepulchral stones
raised over the graves of the dead, by any
other hands but those of their own
offspring.
“Riches pass away like the twinkling
of an eye: of all friends they are the
most inconstant. Flocks perish;
relations die; friends are not immortal; you
will die yourself: but I know one thing
alone that, is out of the reach of fate:
and that is the judgment which is passed
upon the dead.
“Let not the wisest be imperious, but
modest: for he will find by experience,
that when he is among those that are
powerful, he is not the most mighty.