(2) 'Children follow after outward pleasures, and fall into the snare of wide-spread death. Wise men only, knowing the nature of what is immortal, do not look for anything stable here among things unstable.'

(22) 'The wise who knows the Self as bodiless within the bodies, as unchanging among changing things, as great and omnipresent, does never grieve.'

(9) It is better to leave a vessel unfilled, than to attempt to carry it when it is full. If you keep feeling a point that has been sharpened, the point cannot long preserve its sharpness. When gold and jade fill the hall, their possessor cannot keep them safe. When wealth and honours lead to arrogancy, this brings its evil on itself. When the work is done, and one's name is becoming distinguished, to withdraw into obscurity is the way of Heaven.

(119) Thus thou seest how the power or virtue of the Word and eternal life in the earth, and in its children, lies hidden in the centre in death, and springeth up through death, incomprehensibly as to the death, and continually travaileth in anguish to the birth of the light, and yet cannot flourish or bud, till the death be severed from it.

(330) which is a characteristic rather of those who have inherited their fortunes than of those who have acquired them; the makers of fortunes have a second love of money as a creation of their own, resembling the affection of authors for their own poems, or of parents for their children, besides that natural love of it for the sake of use and profit which is common to them and all men. And hence they are very bad company, for they can talk about nothing but the praises of wealth. That is true, he said. Yes, that is very true, but may I ask another question?—What do you consider to be the greatest blessing which you have reaped from your wealth? One, he said, of which I could not expect easily to convince others. For let me tell you, Socrates, that when a man thinks himself to be near death, fears and cares enter into his mind which he never had before; the tales of a world below and the punishment which is exacted there of deeds done here were once a laughing matter to him, but now he is tormented with the thought that they may be true: either from the weakness of age, or because he is now drawing nearer to that other place, he has a clearer view of these things; suspicions and alarms crowd thickly upon him, and he begins to reflect and consider what wrongs he has done to others. And when he finds that the sum of his transgressions is great he will many a time like a child start up in his sleep for fear, and he is filled with dark forebodings. But

(3) A passer-by, who saw a mother weeping over her daughter's grave said: 'This woman is superior to us men, for she knows whom she has lost and from whom she is parted. Happy the woman, or man, who knows w'hom he has lost, and for whom he weeps. As for me, though I sit in mourning and my tears flow like rain, I do not know for whom I weep. This woman carries away the ball of excellence from thousands like me, for she has found the perfume of the being she has lost.'-

(15) "The honours of this world are light as feathers, yet none estimate them at their true value. The misfortunes of this life are weighty as the earth itself, yet none can keep out of their reach. No more, no more, seek to influence by virtue. Beware, beware, move cautiously on! O ferns, O ferns, wound not my steps! Through my tortuous journey wound not my feet! Hills suffer from the trees they produce. Fat burns by its own combustibility. Cinnamon trees furnish food: therefore they are cut down. The lacquer tree is felled for use. All men know the use of useful things; but they do not know the use of useless things."

(3) Another advantage of marriage is that, as the Prophet said, the prayers of children profit their parents when the latter are dead, and children who die before their parents intercede for them on the Day of Judgment. "When a child," said the Prophet, "is told to enter heaven, it weeps and says, 'I will not enter in without my father and mother.' " Again, one day the Prophet seized hold of a man's sleeves and drew him violently towards himself, saying, "Even thus shall children draw their parents into heaven." He added, "Children crowd together at the gate of heaven and cry out for their fathers and mothers, till those of the latter who are outside are told to enter in and join their children."

(53) As many kinds of wreaths can be made from a heap of flowers, so many good things may be achieved by a mortal when once he is born.

(30) Thereon comes surcease from sorrow and the burden of toil.

(287) Death comes and carries off that man, praised for his children and flocks, his mind distracted, as a flood carries off a sleeping village.

(25) Therefore, O dear Soul, turn, and let not the Devil captivate thee, and regard not the Scorn of the World; all thy Sorrow must be turned into great Joy. And though in this World thou hast not great Honour, Power, and Riches, that is nothing; thou knowest not, whether Tomorrow will be the Day it will come to thy Turn [to die.] Does not a Bit of Bread taste better to the Needy, than the best Dainties to the great Ones? What Advantage has the rich Man then, but that he sees much, and must be tormented and vexed in many Things, and in the End must give an Account of all his Doings and Stewardship, and how he has been a Planter in this World? He must give an Account of all his Servants, and if he has been an evil Example to them, and has been a Scandal to them, so that they have walked in ungodly Ways, then their poor Souls cry eternally cfor Vengeance upon those their Superiors; there all stands in the Figure in the Tincture. Why dost thou contend and strive so much after worldly Honour that is transitory? Rather endeavour for the Tree of Pearl, which thou earnest along with thee, and shalt rejoice eternally in its Growing and Fruit.

(9) Children, when they have long lived in ignorance, consider themselves happy. Because those who depend on their good works are, owing to their passions, improvident, they fall and become miserable when their life (in the world which they had gained by their good works) is finished.

(103) And yet when ye die the sinners speak over you: "As we die, so die the righteous, And what benefit do they reap for their deeds?

(11) But they are not lost! Remember, you are what you are today by reason of these very experiences which you now fail to remember—they exist in your character and have helped to mould and shape it. The apparently forgotten pains, pleasures, sorrows, and happinesses are active factors in the formation and maintenance of your character of today. This trial strengthened you along certain lines; that one changed your point of view and made you see things with a broader vision. This grief caused you to feel the pain of others; that disappointment spurred you on to new endeavors. And each and every one of them left a permanent mark upon your personality—upon your character. All men and women are what they are by reason of what they have gone through—have lived out and outlived. And though these happenings, scenes, circumstances, occurrences, experiences, have faded from the memory, their effects are indelibly imprinted upon the fabric of the character, and the individual of today is different from what he would have been had the happenings or experience not entered into his life.

(82) I have given Wisdom to thee and to thy children, [And thy children that shall be to thee], That they may give it to their children for generations, This wisdom (namely) that passeth their thought.

(11) Through love the dead rise to life, Even when an evil befalls you, have due regard; The sight which regards the ebb and flow of good and ill Thence you see the one state moves you into the other, So long as you experience not fears after joys, How can you look for pleasures after disgusts? While ye fear the doom of the angel on the left hand, May you gain two wings! A fowl with only one wing Is impotent to fly, O well-intentioned one!

(2) Now, however, many previously conceiving in imagination, that all that is present with, and imparted to them by nature and fortune, is better than it is, and not thinking it to be such as it is in reality, but such as it is able to become when it has arrived at the summit of excellence, they burden the soul with many great, nefarious, and stupid evils, when they are suddenly deprived of [these evanescent goods]. And thus it happens to them that they lead a most bitter and miserable life. But this takes place in the loss of riches, or the death of friends or children, or in the privation of certain other things, which are conceived by them to be most honorable possessions.

Afterwards, weeping and lamenting, they assert of themselves, that they alone are most unfortunate and miserable, not remembering that these things have happened, and even now happen, to many others; nor are they able to understand the life of those that are now in existence, and of those that have lived in former times, nor to see in what great calamities and waves of evils, many of the present time are, and of the past have been involved. Considering with ourselves therefore, that many having lost their property, have afterwards on account of this very loss been saved, since hereafter they might either have fallen into the hands of robbers, or into the power of a tyrant; that many also who have loved certain persons, and have been benevolently disposed towards them in the extreme, have afterwards greatly hated them;—considering all these things, which have been delivered to us by history, and likewise learning that many have been destroyed by their children, and by those that they have most dearly loved; and comparing our own life with that of those who have been more unhappy than we have been, and taking into account human casualties [in general] and not only such as happen to ourselves, we shall pass through life with greater tranquillity.

For it is not lawful that he who is himself a man, should think the calamities of others easy to be borne, and not his own, since he sees that the whole of life is naturally exposed to many calamities. Those however, that weep and lament, besides not being able to recover what they have lost, or recal to life those that are dead, impel the soul to greater perturbations, in consequence of its being filled with much depravity. It is requisite therefore, that, being washed and purified, we should by all possible contrivances wipe away our inveterate stains by the reasonings of philosophy. But we shall accomplish this by adhering to prudence and temperance, being satisfied with our present circumstances, and not aspiring after many things.

For men who procure for themselves a great abundance [of external goods], do not consider that the enjoyment of them terminates with the present life. We ought therefore to use the goods that are present; and by the assistance of the beautiful and venerable things of which philosophy is the source, we shall be liberated from the insatiable desire of depraved possessions.

(13) Joy and sorrow come and go, and over them I have no control. "Alas! the life of man is but as a stoppage at an inn. He knows that which comes within the range of his experience. Otherwise, he knows not. He knows that he can do what he can do, and that he cannot do what he cannot do. But there is always that which he does not know and that which he cannot do; and to struggle that it shall not be so,—is not this a cause for grief? "The best language is that which is not spoken, the best form of action is that which is without deeds. Spread out your knowledge and it will be found to be shallow."

(5) Yet would I not thy neighbours thou shouldst envy, Because thy life into the future reaches Beyond the punishment of their perfidies." When by its silence showed that sainted soul That it had finished putting in the woof Into that web which I had given it warped, Began I, even as he who yearneth after, Being in doubt, some counsel from a person Who seeth, and uprightly wills, and loves: "Well see I, father mine, how spurreth on The time towards me such a blow to deal me As heaviest is to him who most gives way. Therefore with foresight it is well I arm me, That, if the dearest place be taken from me, I may not lose the others by my songs. Down through the world of infinite bitterness, And o'er the mountain, from whose beauteous summit The eyes of my own Lady lifted me, And afterward through heaven from light to light, I have learned that which, if I tell again, Will be a savour of strong herbs to many. And if I am a timid friend to truth, I fear lest I may lose my life with those Who will hereafter call this time the olden."