But supposing all this were not true, there is nevertheless a certain respect, a general duty of humanity, not only to beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees, and plants. We owe justice to men, and graciousness and benignity to other creatures that are capable of it; there is a certain commerce and mutual obligation betwixt them and us. Nor shall I be afraid to confess the tenderness of my nature so childish, that I cannot well refuse to play with my dog, when he the most unseasonably importunes me to do so. The Turks have alms and hospitals for beasts. The Romans had public care to the nourishment of geese, by whose vigilance their Capitol had been preserved. The Athenians made a decree that the mules and moyls which had served at the building of the temple called Hecatompedon should be free and suffered to pasture at their own choice, without hindrance. The Agrigentines had a common use solemnly to inter the beasts they had a kindness for, as horses of some rare quality, dogs, and useful birds, and even those that had only been kept to divert their children; and the magnificence that was ordinary with them in all other things, also particularly appeared in the sumptuosity and numbers of monuments erected to this end, and which remained in their beauty several ages after. The Egyptians buried wolves, bears, crocodiles, dogs, and cats in sacred places, embalmed their bodies, and put on mourning at their death. Cimon gave an honourable sepulture to the mares with which he had three times gained the prize of the course at the Olympic Games. The ancient Xantippus caused his dog to be interred on an eminence near the sea, which has ever since retained the name, and Plutarch says, that he had a scruple about selling for a small profit to the slaughterer an ox that had been long in his service.
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A little cheese when
a mind to make a feast
A word ill taken obliterates
ten years’ merit
Cato said: So many
servants, so many enemies
Cherish themselves most
where they are most wrong
Condemn all violence
in the education of a tender soul
Cruelty is the very
extreme of all vices
Disguise, by their abridgments
and at their own choice
Epicurus
Flatterer in your old
age or in your sickness
He felt a pleasure and
delight in so noble an action
He judged other men
by himself
I cannot well refuse
to play with my dog
I do not much lament
the dead, and should envy them rather
I had rather be old
a brief time, than be old before old age
I owe it rather to my
fortune than my reason
Incline the history
to their own fancy
It (my books) may know
many things that are gone from me
Knowledge and truth
may be in us without judgment
Learn the theory from
those who best know the practice
Loved them for our sport,