Such deeds as thou with fear and grief Wouldst, on a sick-bed laid, recall, In youth and health eschew them all, Remembering life is frail and brief. _Mahābhārata._ 571. A man should not keep company with one whose character, family, and abode are unknown. _Panchatantra._ 572. Sit not down to the table before thy stomach is empty, and rise before thou hast filled it. _Arabic._ 573. If thou be rich, strive to command thy money, lest it command thee. _Quarles._ 574. In all companies there are more fools than wise men, and the greater part always gets the better of the wiser. _Rabelais._ 575. Talents are best nurtured in solitude; character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world. _Goethe._ 576. No one ought to despond in adverse circumstances, for they may turn out to be the cause of good to us.[30] _Menander._ [30] Cf. Job V, 17; Heb. XII, 6. 577. The constant man loses not his virtue in misfortune. A torch may point towards the ground, but its flame will still point upwards. _Bhartrihari._ 578. A man should never despise himself, for brilliant success never attends on the man who is contemned by himself. _Mahābhārata._ 579. It is the character of a simpleton to be a bore. A man of sense sees at once whether he is welcome or tiresome; he knows to withdraw the moment that precedes that in which he would be in the least in the way. _La Bruyère._ 580. The man of first rate excellence is virtuous in spite of instruction; he of the middle class is so after instruction; the lowest order of men are vicious in spite of instruction. _Chinese._ 581. Not to attend at the door of the wealthy, and not to use the voice of petition—these constitute the best life of a man. _Hitopadesa._ 582. What a man can do and suffer is unknown to himself till some occasion presents itself which draws out the hidden power. Just as one sees not in the water of an unruffled pond the fury and roar with which it can dash down a steep rock without injury to itself, or how high it is capable of rising; or as little as one can suspect the latent heat in ice-cold water. _Schopenhauer._ 583.