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I’ve wandered over many lands, and reaped withal no fruit, I’ve laid my pride of rank aside, and pressed my baffled suit, At stranger boards, like shameless crow, I’ve eaten bitter bread, But fierce Desire, that raging fire, still clamours to be fed.

Bhartrhari

A good man may fall, but he falls like a ball [and rebounds]; the ignoble man falls like a lump of clay.
BHARTRHARI

Fall Good Man Men
Man is but a beast without it: such a glorious god is Learning.
BHARTRHARI

Beast Learning Men
The constant man loses not his virtue in misfortune. A torch may point towards the ground, but its flame will still point upwards.
BHARTRHARI

Flames Men Torch
Even the severed branch grows again, and the sunken moon returns: wise men who ponder this are not troubled in adversity.
BHARTRHARI

Adversity Moon Wise
The pearl on my beloved’s neck, Afflicted sore the oyster!
BHARTRHARI

Oysters Pearls Sacrifice
Fate’s sentence written on the brow no hand can e’er efface.
BHARTRHARI

Fate Hands
Trees bend low with ripened fruit; clouds hang down with gentle rain; noble people bow graciously. This is the way of generous things.
BHARTRHARI

Clouds People Rain
The source of inward happiness which shall outlast the earth– To them e’en kings should yield the palm, and own their higher worth.
BHARTRHARI

Happiness Inward Kings Source
I have not wasted life, but life hath wasted me.
BHARTRHARI

Life Wasted Life
I’ve wandered over many lands, and reaped withal no fruit, I’ve laid my pride of rank aside, and pressed my baffled suit, At stranger boards, like shameless crow, I’ve eaten bitter bread, But fierce Desire, that raging fire, still clamours to be fed.
BHARTRHARI

Fire Land Pride
For a moment man is a boy, for a moment a lovesick youth, for a moment bereft of wealth, for a moment in the height of prosperity; then at life’s end with limbs worn out by old age and wrinkles adorning his face, like an actor he retires behind the curtain of death.
BHARTRHARI

Boys Men Wrinkles
Our life is like th’ unstable wave, Our bloom of youth decays. Our joys are brief as lightning flash In summer’s cloudy days, Our riches fleet as swift as thought; Faith in the One Supreme Alone will bear us o’er the gulfs Of Being’s stormy stream.
BHARTRHARI

God Joy Summer
Those from whom we were born have long since departed, and those with whom we grew up exist only in memory. We, too, through the approach of death, become, as it were, trees growing on the sandy bank of a river.
BHARTRHARI

Long Memories Rivers
Those who possess that treasure which no thief can take away, Which, though on suppliants freely spent, increaseth day by day,
BHARTRHARI

Happiness Kings Yield
Let us keep a firm grip upon our money, for without it the whole assembly of virtues are but as blades of grass.
BHARTRHARI

Blades Money Virtue
Knowledge is wonderful and truth serene But man in their service bleeds.
BHARTRHARI

Knowledge Men Wonderful

I’ve wandered over many lands, and reaped withal no fruit, I’ve laid my pride of rank aside, and pressed my baffled suit, At stranger boards, like shameless crow, I’ve eaten bitter bread, But fierce Desire, that raging fire, still clamours to be fed.

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I’ve wandered over many lands, and reaped withal no fruit, I’ve laid my pride of rank aside, and pressed my baffled suit, At stranger boards, like shameless crow, I’ve eaten bitter bread, But fierce Desire, that raging fire, still clamours to be fed.

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Popular Authors

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