“One whose knowledge is confined to books and whose wealth is in the possession of others, can use neither his knowledge nor wealth when the need for them arises.”

Virtuous persons and fruit-laden trees bow, but fools and dry sticks break because they do not bend.

Wealth, a friend, a wife, and a kingdom may be regained; but this body when lost may never be acquired again.

He who look at a woman who is not his wife as a mother; wealth that is not his as dust and all the men as himself… is a happy man. He, who sees all these things under a different light, is a blind.

The beauty of a cuckoo is in its notes, that of a woman in her unalloyed devotion to her husband, that of an ugly person in his scholarship, and that of an ascetic in his forgiveness.

What vice could be worse than covetousness? What is more sinful than slander? For one who is truthful, what need is there for austerity? For one who has a clean heart, what is the need for pilgrimage?

What good is a cow that neither gives milk nor conceives? Similarly, what is the value of the birth of a son if he becomes neither learned nor a pure devotee of the Lord?

Love is indicated by deeds. (and not by words)

The forest fire burns even tree like sandalwood.

Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth, comes of Her own accord where fools are not respected, grain is well stored up, and the husband and wife do not quarrel.

Enemies strike at weak points.

He who is overly attached to his family members experiences fear and sorrow, for the root of all grief is attachment. Thus one should discard attachment to be happy.

Learning is a friend on the journey; a wife in the house; medicine in sickness; and religious merit is the only friend after death.

The ruler should employ person in tasks according to their abilities because Knowers ( or the means ) and efficient employees make impossible tasks also possible.

Till the enemy’s weakness is known , he should be kept on friendly terms.

Let not a single day pass without your learning a verse, half a verse, or a fourth of it, or even one letter of it; nor without attending to charity, study and other pious activity.

Do not keep company with a fool for as we can see he is a two-legged beast. Like an unseen thorn he pierces the heart with his sharp words.

Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.

I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me.

Each book holds an experience and an adventure.

Books are a friend, books are an escape, books are a means to empowerment and books are a means to understanding yourself better and in a world around you. They are everything.

The ability to read awoke inside of me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.

What a book a devil’s chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel work of nature!

Just give me a comfortable couch, a dog, a good book, and a woman.

Words are the physicians of a mind diseased.