Page:Niti literature (Gray J, 1886).pdf/192

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Wide is the difference between the body and the virtues of heart; the one lasts for a season, the other endures for eternity.

Where a wise man is not to be found, there even one of little sense is commended: in a country devoid of large trees the castor-oil plant is accounted one.

In misfortunes we know a friend, in battle a hero, an honest man in debt, a wife when fortunes disappear.

The time of the wise passes away in the enjoyment of poetry and the sciences; that of fools, in vice, sleep, and quarrel,

Avoid him who injures you in your absence and speaks sweetly in your presence: he is a bowl of poison with milk on the surface.

Better be dashed to pieces on a rock, better insert the hand between the fangs of a poisonous snake, better fall into a fiery furnace, than ruin one's character by stains of infamy.

When night comes, fear is at the threshold; at break of day it flies to the hills.

The poison-nut and bitter margosa are useful as medicines; the unfeeling wretch is utterly unprofitable.