ams related at the breakfast table of the angels.
Said a skunk to a tube-rose, “See how swiftly I run, while you cannot walk nor even creep.”
Said the tube-rose to the skunk, “Oh,most noble swift runner, please run swiftly!”
Turtles can tell more about roads than hares.
Strange that creatures without backbones have the hardest shells.
The most talkative is the least intelligent, and there is hardly a difference between an orator and an auctioneer.
Be grateful that you do not have to live down the renown of a father nor the wealth of an uncle.
沙与沫 第四章（6）
But above all be grateful that no one will have to live down either your renown or your wealth.
Only when a juggler misses catching his ball does he appeal to me.
The envious praises me unknowingly.
Long were you a dream in your mother’s sleep, and then she woke to give you birth. The germ of the race is in your mother’s longing. My father and mother desired a child and they begot me. And I wanted a mother and a father and I begot night and the sea.
Some of our children are our justifications and some are but our regrets.
When night comes and you too are dark, lie down and be dark with a will.
And when morning comes and you are still dark, stand up and say to the day with a will, “I am still dark.”
It is stupid to play a role with the night and the day. They would both laugh at you.
The mountain veiled in mist is not a hill; an oak tree in the rain is not a weeping willow.
Behold here is a paradox: the deep and high are nearer to one another than the mid-level to either.
When I stood as a clear mirror before you, you gazed into me and saw your image. Then you said,“I love you.”
But in truth you loved yourself in me.
When you enjoy loving your neighbor it ceases to be a virtue.
Love which is not always springing is always dying.
You cannot have youth and the knowledge of it at the same time;
For youth is too busy living to know, and knowledge is too busy seeking itself to live.
You may sit at your window watching the passers-by.
And watching you may see a nun walking toward your right hand, and a prostitute toward your left hand.
And you may say in your innocence, “How noble is the one and how ignoble is the other.”
But should you close your eyes and listen awhile you would hear a voice whispering in the ether, “One seeks me in prayer, and the other in pain.
And in the spirit of each there is a bower for my spirit.”
Once every hundred years Jesus of Nazareth meets Jesus of the Christian in a garden among the hills of Lebanon.
And they talk long; and each time Jesus of Nazareth goes away saying to Jesus of the Christian, “My friend, I fear we shall never, never agree.”
May God feed the over-abundant!
A great man has two hearts; one bleeds and the other forbears.
Should one tell a lie which does not hurt you nor anyone else, why not say in your heart that the house of his facts is too small for his fancies, and he had to leave it for larger space?＊本＊作＊品＊由＊＊網＊友＊整＊理＊上＊傳＊
Behind every closed door is a mystery sealed with seven seals.
Waiting is the hoofs of time.
What if trouble should be a new window in the Eastern wall of your house?
You may forget the one with whom you have laughed, but never the one with whom you have wept.
There must be something strangely sacred in salt. It is in our tears and in the sea.
Our God in his gracious thirst will drink us all, the dewdrop and the tear.
You are but a fragment of your giant self, a mouth that seeks bread, and a blind hand that holds the cup for a thirsty mouth.
沙与沫 第四章（7）
If you would rise but a cubit above race and country and self you would indeed become godlike.
If I were you I would not find fault with the sea at low tide.
It is a good ship and our captain is able; it is only your stomach that is in disorder.
Should you sit upon a cloud you would not see the boundary line between one country and another, nor the boundary stone between a farm and a farm.
It is a pity you ca