Ernest Bramah Quotes

A reputation for a thousand years may depend upon the conduct of a single moment.

One learns to itch where one can scratch.

There are few situations in life that cannot be resolved promptly, and to the satisfaction of all concerned, by either suicide, a bag of gold, or thrusting a despised antagonist over a precipice on a dark night

Do not adjust your sandals while passing through a melon-field, nor yet arrange your hat beneath an orange-tree.

Eat in the dark the bargain that you purchased in the dusk.

The province of philosophy is not so much to prevent calamities befalling as to demonstrate that they are blessings when they have taken place.

One may ride upon a tiger's back but it is fatal to dismount.

How is it possible to suspend topaz in one cup of the balance and weigh it against amethyst in the other; or who in a single language can compare the tranquillizing grace of a maiden with the invigorating pleasure of witnessing a well-contested rat-fight?

He who thinks he is raising a mound may only in Reality be digging a pit.

When struck by a thunderbolt it is unnecessary to consult the Book of Dates as to the precise meaning of the omen.

Although there exist many thousand subjects for elegant conversation, there are persons who cannot meet a cripple without talking about feet.

The wise duck keeps his mouth shut when he smells frogs.

Before hastening to secure a possible reward of five taels by dragging an unobservant person away from a falling building, examine well his features lest you find, when too late, that it is one to whom you are indebted for double that amount.

When an alluring woman comes in at the door," warningly traced the austere Kien-fi on the margin of his well-known essay, "discretion may be found up the chimney". It is incredible that beneath this ever-timely reminder an obscure disciple should have added the words: "The wiser the sage, the more profound the folly.

He who has failed three times sets up as an instructor.

Where the road bends abruptly, take short steps.

Better a dish of husks to the accompaniment of a muted lute than to be satiated with stewed shark's fin and rich spiced wine of which the cost is frequently mentioned by the provider.

The one-legged never stumble.

At the mention of the name and offence of this degraded being a great sound went up from the entire multitude - a universal cry of execration, not greatly dissimilar from that which may be frequently heard in the crowded Temple of Impartiality when the one whose duty it is to take up, at a venture, the folded papers, announces that the sublime Emperor, or some mandarin of exalted rank, has been so fortunate as to hold the winning number in the Annual State Lottery.

However deep you dig a well it affords no refuge in the time of flood.

One cannot live for ever by ignoring the price of coffins.

There are those who collect the refuse of the public streets, but in order to be received into the band it is necessary to have been born one of the Hereditary Confederacy of Superfluity Removers and Abandoned Oddment Gatherers.

When Ling was communicating to any person the signs by which messengers might find him, he was compelled to add, "the neighbourhood in which this contemptible person resides is that officially known as 'the mean quarter favoured by the lower class of those who murder by treachery'," and for this reason he was not always treated with the regard to which his attainments entitled him, or which he would have unquestionably received had he been able to describe himself as of "the partly-drained and uninfected area reserved to Mandarins and their friends.

Alas! It is well written, The road to eminence lies through the cheap and exceedingly uninviting eating-houses.

Should a person on returning from the city discover his house to be in flames, let him examine well the change which he has received from the chair-carrier before it is too late; for evil never travels alone.