Tiruvalluvar

Tiruvalluvar was a Tamil poet-saint known as the author of the Tirukkural (“Sacred Couplets”), considered a masterpiece of human thought, compared in India and abroad to the Bible, John Milton's Paradise Lost, and the works of Plato.

Tirukkural

• There is no greater wealth than Virtue,
  And no greater loss than to forget it.
  • Verse IV.2

• The worth of a wife is a man’s good fortune;
  His jewels are his good children.
  • Verse VI.10

• The gruel that children’s little hands have stirred
  Is sweeter than nectar.
  • Verse VII.2

• To use bitter words, when kind words are at hand,
  Is like picking unripe fruit when the ripe fruit is there.
  • Verse X.10

• The wound that’s made by fire will heal,
  But the wound that’s made by tongue will never heal.
  • Verse XIII.9

• To turn away a guest is poorest poverty;
  To bear with fools is mightiest might.
  • Verse XVI.3

• Real kindness seeks no return;
  What return can the world make to rain clouds?
  • Verse XXII.1

• When you are about to badger the weak,
  Then imagine yourself before a more powerful man.
  • Verse XXV.10

• How can kindliness rule that man
  Who eateth other flesh to increase his own?
  • Verse XXVI.1

• Not every light is a true light;
  To the wise the light of truth is light itself.
  • Verse XXX.9

• Anger kills both laughter and joy;
  What greater foe is there than anger?
  • Verse XXXI.4

• Just as the hand that strikes the ground cannot fail,
  So is the ruin certain of him who cherishes anger.
  • Verse XXXI.7

• Those who give way to great anger are like the dead:
  Those who are free from anger are free from death.
  • Verse XXXI.10

• Whatever things a man gives up,
  By those he cannot suffer pain.
  • Verse XXXV.1

• The learned are said to have seeing eyes;
  The unlearned have only two sores on their faces.
  • Verse XL.3

• Even the ignorant may appear very worthy,
  If they keep silent before the learned.
  • Verse XLI.3

• The ignorant are like useless, brackish soil;
  They exist and that is all.
  • Verse XLI.6

• When no food is given to the ear,
  Then let a little be given to the stomach.
  • Verse XLII.2

• As the quality of water changes with the nature of the soil;
  So will a man’s reason vary with the quality of his friends.
  • Verse XLVI.2

• The crow does not hide its prey, but calls for others to share it;
  So wealth will be with those of a like disposition.
  • Verse LIII.7

• The lotus’ stem is as long as the depth of water,
  So men’s height is just as great as their inner strength.
  • Verse LX.5

• They who in trouble untroubled are
  Will trouble trouble itself.
  • Verse LXIII.3

• To get wealth and security by guile
  Is like one who pours water into a pot of unbaked clay.
  • Verse LXVI.10

• Reasoning with a drunkard is like
  Going under water with a torch to seek for a drowning man.
  • Verse XCIII.9

• If men must beg to live,
  May the Creator also go wandering and perish.
  • Verse CVII.2