Fragments (A.41-A.45)

Do not hang your house round with tablets and pictures, but adorn it with virtue. For those are merely foreign and a fading deception of the eyes; but this, a congenial and indelible and perpetual ornament to the house.

Instead of herds of oxen, endeavor to assemble flocks of friends about your house.

As a wolf resembles a dog, so much does a flatterer, an adulterer, a parasite, resemble a friend. Take heed, therefore, that instead of guardian dogs, you do not inadvertently admit ravening wolves.

To seek admiration by adorning one's house with stucco belongs to a tasteless man; but to adorn our characters by the charm of an amiable nature shows at once a lover of beauty and a lover of man.

If you chiefly admire little things, you will never be held worthy of great ones; but if you are above little things, you will be held greatly worthy.