A Father's Advice to his Son

This set of advices are unique and useful to anyone, anywhere in the world.

FROM HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK - William Shakespeare:

Act 1 Scene 111. – A Room in Polonius’s House

Polonius.
[Laying his hands on Laertes’s head.]
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thought no tongue,
nor any unproportion’d thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy sole with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d comrade.
BewareOf entrance to a quarrel; but, being in,
Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgement
Costly thy habits as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy, rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are 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 canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!