Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade.
Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
Bear it that the opposer may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear; but few thine voice;
Take each man's censure; but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in France, of the best rank and station,
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For a loan oft loses both itself and friend.
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all--to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou can'st not then be false to any man.
--_Shakespeare._