Gold can gild a rotten stick, and dirt sully an ingot.
The day seems long, but night is odious; no sleep, but dreams; no dreams but visions strange.
Valor is abased by too much loftiness.
Blasphemous words betray the vain foolishness of the speaker.
Contentions for trifles can get but a trifling victory.
Like the air-invested heron, great persons should conduct themselves; and the higher they be, the less they should show.