Unindicated and unknown is the length of life of those subject to death.
Those who have come to be, those who will be: All will go, leaving the body behind. The skillful person, realizing the loss of all, should live the holy life ardently.
Life is swept along, next-to-nothing its span. For one swept to old age no shelters exist. Perceiving this danger in death, one should drop the world's bait and look for peace.
Who have not led the holy life nor riches won while young, they linger on as aged cranes around a fished-out pond.
In life, we can't always control the first arrow. However, the second arrow is our reaction to the first. This second arrow is optional.
There are four nutriments for the maintenance of beings who have come into being or for the support of those in search of a place to be born: Physical food, gross or refined; touch as the second; thinking the third; and consciousness the fourth.
The world is afflicted by death and decay. But the wise do not grieve, having realized the nature of the world.
If you meditate earnestly, pure in mind and kind in deeds, leading a disciplined life in harmony with the dharma, you will grow in glory. If you meditate earnestly, through spiritual disciplines you can make an island for yourself that no flood can overwhelm.
Don't run after pleasure and neglect the practice of meditation. If you forget the goal of life and get caught in the pleasures of the world, you will come to envy those who put meditation first.
There is some self-interest behind every friendship. There is no friendship without self-interests. This is a bitter truth.
As a single withered tree, if set aflame, causes a whole forest to burn, so does a rascal son destroy a whole family.
The Goddess of wealth is unsteady, and so is the life breath. The duration of life is uncertain, and the place of habitation is uncertain; but in all this inconsistent world religious merit alone is immovable.
It is better to die than to preserve this life by incurring disgrace. The loss of life causes but a moment's grief, but disgrace brings grief every day of one's life.
A still-born son is superior to a foolish son endowed with a long life. The first causes grief for but a moment while the latter like a blazing fire consumes his parents in grief for life.
When one is consumed by the sorrows of life, three things give him relief: offspring, a wife, and the company of the Lord's devotees.
Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
Life is but an endless series of experiments.
You cannot succeed in one department of life while cheating on another, life is an indivisible whole.
