If you perfume a slave and a freeman, the difference of their birth produces none in the smell; and the scent is perceived as soon in the one as the other; but the odor of honorable toil, as it is acquired with great pains and application, is ever sweet and worthy of a brave man. BY DANTE ALIGHIERI (Italian epic poet, 1265-1321) What! You say a horse is noble because it is good in itself, and the same you say of a falcon or a pearl; but a man shall be called noble because his ancestors were so? Not with words, but with knives must one answer such a beastly notion. BY OMAR KHAYYAM (Persian poet, Eleventh Century) In this world he who possesses a morsel of bread, and some nest in which to shelter himself, who is master or slave of no man, tell that man to live content; he possesses a very sweet existence. Oh! Freedom (_Negro Slave Song_) Oh! Freedom, oh! Freedom, Oh! Freedom, over me; And before I'll be a slave I'll be buried in my grave, And go home to my God And be free. Fredome BY JOHN BARBOUR (English poet, Fourteenth Century) A! fredome is a nobill thing! Fredome mayse man to haiff liking! Fredome all solace to man giffis: He levys at ese that frely levys; A noble hart may haiff nane ease, Na ellys nocht that may him plese, Gyff fredome failythe: for fre liking Is yearnyt ow'r all othir thing Na he, that ay hase levyt fre, May nocht knaw weill the propyrte, The angry, na the wretchyt dome, That is cowplyt to foule thyrldome. Bot gyff he had assayit it, Than all perquer he suld it wyt; And suld think fredome mar to pryse Than all the gold in warld that is. A Home of Righteousness (_Ancient Greek Inscription_) Piety has raised this house from the first foundation even to the lofty roof; for Macedonius fashioned not his wealth by heaping up from the possessions of others with plundering sword, nor has any poor man here wept over his vain and profitless toil, being robbed of just hire; and as rest from labor is kept inviolate by the just man, so let the works of pious mortals endure. Palaces (_From the Book of Enoch_) (Hebrew work of the Second Century, B.C., preserved only in the Ethiopic tongue) Woe unto you who despise the humble dwelling and inheritance of your fathers! Woe unto you who build your palaces with the sweat of others! Each stone, each brick of which it is built, is a sin! Pride in Poverty BY CONFUCIUS (Chinese philosopher, B. C. 500) Riches and honor are what men desire; but if they attain to them by improper ways, they should not continue to hold them. Poverty and low estate are what men dislike; but if they are brought to such condition by improper ways, they should not feel shame for it. Millionaires in Rome BY CICERO (Latin statesman and orator, B. C. 106-43)