Tiruvalluvar
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.
Even the ignorant may appear very worthy,
If they keep silent before the learned.
They who in trouble untroubled are
Will trouble trouble itself.
When you are about to badger the weak,
Then imagine yourself before a more powerful man.
The learned are said to have seeing eyes;
The unlearned have only two sores on their faces.
The crow does not hide its prey, but calls for others to share it;
So wealth will be with those of a like disposition.
Anger kills both laughter and joy;
What greater foe is there than anger?
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.
Real kindness seeks no return;
What return can the world make to rain clouds?
The ignorant are like useless, brackish soil;
They exist and that is all.
To turn away a guest is poorest poverty;
To bear with fools is mightiest might.
Not every light is a true light;
To the wise the light of truth is light itself.
To use bitter words, when kind words are at hand,
Is like picking unripe fruit when the ripe fruit is there.
If men must beg to live,
May the Creator also go wandering and perish.
Whatever things a man gives up,
By those he cannot suffer pain.
The lotus’ stem is as long as the depth of water,
So men’s height is just as great as their inner strength.
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.
Just as the hand that strikes the ground cannot fail,
So is the ruin certain of him who cherishes anger.