John Clare Aphorisms: 2015

Riches...

"Riches are like muck, which stink in a heap, but spread abroad, make the earth fruitful"

Clare's Proverbs, David Powell (2000)

Christmas...

"His gifts at Christmass time are yearly given"

EP II 697 (The Parish)

Friendship...

"Praise the bridge you get safe over -- He who sets not value by his friends deserves none"

Pet MS A48 p37r

Winning and losing

"A loosing game is a fools game & easy played But it takes a wise man to win"

Phz Misc. MS 198 p46

Injuries and Kindnesses

"Write injuries in dust & kindnesses in marble"

Pet MS A45 p26

Second thoughts...

Lord Radstock to John Taylor, 23 February 1820

"I have ever been a great admirer of proverbs, and this from a conviction of their being, generally, founded on Wisdom, and the experience of ages. Among my favourites that of 'Second thoughts are best', is one for which I have long had the highest respect, it often serving me as an oracle to guide me..."

Quoted in 'John Clare's Proverbs' - David Powell - Tern Press (2000)

Popularity...

"Popularity is a hasty and a busy talker"

European Magazine, November 1825

Marriage...

Who falls in love will seek his own undoing
The road to marriage is — ‘the road to ruin’

Don Juan a Poem
LP I 89

Sex...

"I wish young married dames were not so frisky
Nor hide the ring to make believe they’re single"

Don Juan A Poem
LP I 89

Autumn...

"The autumn is staining the hedges and woods with the hues of the west"

LP I 360

Wealth...

"He that buildeth his house with other mens money is like one that gathereth stones for his own burial"

Pet MS A51 p12r

Reminds me rather a lot of this little warning from 'Solitude" published in a disastrously altered form in 1821:

& man to me a gauling thing
Ownd creations lord & king
Tyrant to day to morrow gone
All ‘stinguished only by a stone