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“Fish and visitors stink in three days.”
Hospitality has limits, and the humor works by comparing an overlong visit with something that naturally becomes unpleasant over time.
Source note: Poor Richard’s Almanack; a comic maxim about hospitality, boundaries, and overstaying a welcome.
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“I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility.”
Ruskin defines greatness without self-worship: genuine ability can be recognized accurately while still being held inside a larger sense of proportion, dependence and responsibility.
Source note: Modern Painters, Volume III, Part IV, Chapter XVI, section 24, Project Gutenberg #38923. Ruskin immediately clarifies that humility does not mean doubt of one’s real power or hesitation about one’s opinions; it means understanding those powers in relation to a much larger world.
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“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.”
The right words gain value from timing and fit, not merely from sounding impressive in isolation.
Source note: Proverbs 25:11, King James Version.
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“When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom.”
Pride is linked with poor judgment while humility is linked with wisdom, suggesting that accurate self-estimation improves decision making.
Source note: Proverbs 11:2 in the King James Version.
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“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”
The proverb treats pride as a warning sign that can blind judgment before a serious mistake.
Source note: Proverbs 15:1 in the King James Version; the proverb contrasts a soft answer with speech that intensifies wrath.
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“Humility—to put a seal upon your lips and forget what you have done.”
Drummond defines humility as allowing good work to remain larger than the ego that performed it: kindness is followed by a refusal to turn the act into self-advertisement or private self-congratulation.
Source note: “The Greatest Thing in the World,” in The Greatest Thing in the World and Other Addresses, Project Gutenberg #16739. Drummond explicitly places Humility among the “ingredients” of Christian love and glosses it as love that does not vaunt itself.