Thiruvalluvar
Thiruvalluvar was a Tamil poet-saint known as the author of the Tirukkural, considered a masterpiece of human thought, compared in India and abroad to the Bible, John Milton's Paradise Lost, and the works of Plato.
To get wealth and security by guile
Is like one who pours water into a pot of unbaked clay.
How can kindliness rule that man
Who eateth other flesh to increase his own?
The worth of a wife is a man’s good fortune;
His jewels are his good children.
Reasoning with a drunkard is like
Going under water with a torch to seek for a drowning man.
The gruel that children’s little hands have stirred
Is sweeter than nectar.
The ignorant are like useless, brackish soil;
They exist and that is all.
Anger kills both laughter and joy;
What greater foe is there than anger?
Even the ignorant may appear very worthy,
If they keep silent before the learned.
When you are about to badger the weak,
Then imagine yourself before a more powerful man.
Not every light is a true light;
To the wise the light of truth is light itself.
Whatever things a man gives up,
By those he cannot suffer pain.
The wound that’s made by fire will heal,
But the wound that’s made by tongue will never heal.
There is no greater wealth than Virtue,
And no greater loss than to forget it.
When no food is given to the ear,
Then let a little be given to the stomach.
To use bitter words, when kind words are at hand,
Is like picking unripe fruit when the ripe fruit is there.
They who in trouble untroubled are
Will trouble trouble itself.
If men must beg to live,
May the Creator also go wandering and perish.
As the quality of water changes with the nature of the soil;
So will a man’s reason vary with the quality of his friends.
Those who give way to great anger are like the dead:
Those who are free from anger are free from death.
The lotus’ stem is as long as the depth of water,
So men’s height is just as great as their inner strength.