Those who know many things rarely lead the happiest life.
Middling wise should every man be; never overwise.

No man should know his fate beforehand; so shall he live freest from care.
Middling wise should every man be, never too wise.

A wise man's heart is seldom glad, if its owner be a true sage.
This is the ancient wisdom also of Solomon "He that increases wisdom increases sorrow." But how very true as worldly wisdom these little Northern sentences are.

That a man who knows a little of many things, and no one thing perfectly, is the happiest man--this certainly is even more true to-day than it was a thousand years ago.

Spencer has well observed that the man who can influence his generation, is never the man greatly in advance of his time, but only the man who is very slightly better than his fellows.