Ernest Bramah
Ernest Bramah
Ernest Bramah, born Ernest Brammah Smith, was an English author. He published 21 books and numerous short stories and features. His humorous works were ranked with Jerome K Jerome and W.W. Jacobs, his detective stories with Conan Doyle, his politico-science fiction with H.G. Wells and his supernatural stories with Algernon Blackwood. George Orwell acknowledged that Bramah's book, What Might Have Been, influenced his Nineteen Eighty-Four. Bramah created the characters Kai Lung and Max Carrados...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth20 March 1868
Alas! It is well written, The road to eminence lies through the cheap and exceedingly uninviting eating-houses.
It is a mark of insincerity of purpose to spend one's time in looking for the sacred Emperor in the low-class tea shops
At the mention of the name and offence of this degraded being a great sound went up from the entire multitude - a universal cry of execration, not greatly dissimilar from that which may be frequently heard in the crowded Temple of Impartiality when the one whose duty it is to take up, at a venture, the folded papers, announces that the sublime Emperor, or some mandarin of exalted rank, has been so fortunate as to hold the winning number in the Annual State Lottery.
Before hastening to secure a possible reward of five taels by dragging an unobservant person away from a falling building, examine well his features lest you find, when too late, that it is one to whom you are indebted for double that amount.
Should a person on returning from the city discover his house to be in flames, let him examine well the change which he has received from the chair-carrier before it is too late; for evil never travels alone.
Do not adjust your sandals while passing through a melon-field, nor yet arrange your hat beneath an orange-tree.
The one-legged never stumble.
However deep you dig a well it affords no refuge in the time of flood.
Although there exist many thousand subjects for elegant conversation, there are persons who cannot meet a cripple without talking about feet.
Eat in the dark the bargain that you purchased in the dusk.
Where the road bends abruptly, take short steps.
Better a dish of husks to the accompaniment of a muted lute than to be satiated with stewed shark's fin and rich spiced wine of which the cost is frequently mentioned by the provider.
When an alluring woman comes in at the door," warningly traced the austere Kien-fi on the margin of his well-known essay, "discretion may be found up the chimney". It is incredible that beneath this ever-timely reminder an obscure disciple should have added the words: "The wiser the sage, the more profound the folly.
He who thinks he is raising a mound may only in Reality be digging a pit.