“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.”

A person should not be too honest. Straight trees are cut first and honest people are screwed first.

All types of riches should be amassed by all means.

One who is in search of knowledge should give up the search of pleasure and the one who is in search of pleasure should give up the search of knowledge.

Skills are called hidden treasure as they save like a mother in a foreign country.

We should always speak what would please the man of whom we expect a favor, like the hunter who sings sweetly when he desires to shoot a deer.

Whores don’t live in company of poor men, citizens never support a weak company and birds don’t build nests on a tree that doesn’t bear fruits.

Offspring, friends and relatives flee from a devotee of the Lord: yet those who follow him bring merit to their families through their devotion.

Union in privacy (with one’s wife); boldness; storing away useful items; watchfulness; and not easily trusting others; these five things are to be learned from a crow.

The life of an uneducated man is as useless as the tail of a dog which neither covers its rear end, nor protects it from the bites of insects.

There is no austerity equal to a balanced mind, and there is no happiness equal to contentment; there is no disease like covetousness, and no virtue like mercy.

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.

A learned man is honored by the people. A learned man commands respect everywhere for his learning. Indeed, learning is honored everywhere.

He who gives up shyness in monetary dealings, in acquiring knowledge, in eating and in business, becomes happy.

A person becomes great not be sitting on some high seat, but through higher qualities. Can a crow become an eagle by simply sitting on the top of a palatial building?

Avoid him who talks sweetly before you but tries to ruin you behind your back, for he is like a pitcher of poison with milk on top.

A man is great by deeds, not by birth.

Deep in the heart of the infinite darkness, a tiny blue marble is spinning through space. Born in the splendor of God’s holy vision, and sliding away like a tear down his face.

Birth was the death of him.

I fall headlong into everything that lights me on fire. I know not of restraint. I was born to burn.

I’m from Dagestan, I’m born in Dagestan, and Dagestan is a different level for people living a tough life, people living in the mountains.

Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.

The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly – it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.

Born in poverty, he will take supreme power. He will bankrupt the country. Raising an army in the Milanese marches, he will drain Faenza and Florence of gold and people.

Love, whether newly born, or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, this it overflows upon the outward world.