Princes and parasites comprise mankind: 
To one wise prince a million parasites;
The most uncommon thing is common-sense;
A truly wise man is a freak of nature. 
The herd are parasites of parasites
That blindly follow priest or demagogue,
Himself blind leader of the blind.  The wise
Weigh words, but by the yard fools measure them. 
The wise beginneth at the end; the fool
Ends at the beginning, or begins anew: 
Aye, every ditch is full of after-wit. 
Folly sows broad cast; Wisdom gathers in,
And so the wise man fattens on the fool,
And from the follies of the foolish learns
Wisdom to guide himself and bridle them. 
“To-morrow I made my fortune,” cries the fool,
“To-day I’ll spend it.”  Thus will Folly eat
His chicken ere the hen hath laid the egg. 
So Folly blossoms with promises all the year—­
Promises that bud and blossom but to blast. 
“All men are fools,” said Socrates, the wise,
And in the broader sense I grant it true,
For even Socrates had his Xanthipp’. 
Whose head is wise oft hath a foolish heart;
The wisest has more follies than he needs;
Wisdom and madness, too, are near akin. 
The marrow-maddening canker-worm of love
Feeds on the brains of wise men as on fools’.

The wise man gathers wisdom from all men
As bees their honey hive from plant and weed. 
Yea, from the varied history of the world,
From the experience of all times, all men,
The wise man learneth wisdom.  Folly learns
From his own bruises if he learns at all. 
The fool—­born wise—­what need hath he to learn? 
He needs but gabble wisdom to the world: 
Grill him on a gridiron and he gabbles still.

Wise men there are—­wise in the eyes of men—­
Who cram their hollow heads with ancient wit
Cackled in Carthage, babbled in Babylon,
Gabbled in Greece and riddled in old Rome,
And never coin a farthing of their own. 
Wise men there are—­for owls are counted wise—­
Who love to leave the lamp-lit paths behind,
And chase the shapeless shadow of a doubt. 
Too wise to learn, too wise to see the truth,
E’en though it glow and sparkle like a gem
On God’s outstretched forefinger for all time. 
These have one argument, and only one,
For good or evil, earth or jeweled heaven—­
The olden, owlish argument of doubt. 
Ah, he alone is wise who ever stands
Armed cap-a-pie with God’s eternal truth. 
Where Grex is Rex God help the hapless land. 
The yelping curs that bay the rising moon
Are not more clamorous, and the fitful winds
Not more inconstant.  List the croaking frogs
That raise their heads in fen or stagnant pool,
Shouting at eve their wisdom from the mud. 
Beside the braying, bleating, bellowing mob,
Their jarring discords are sweet harmony. 
The headless herd are but a noise of wind;
Sometimes, alas, the wild tornado’s roar.