Your enemies are mostly not external,
Your real enemies are probably internal.
Your passions and your jealousies trouble you
More than your outside enemies threaten you.
Thoughts good or evil run through one’s mind;
It is one’s duty to control one’s mind.
One has also to control one’s senses,
For one’s thoughts are influenced by one’s senses.
Life is a mixture of success and failure;
Few are those who bemoan total failure.
‘Nothing succeeds like success’ is the saying,
Success follows effort needs no gainsaying.
Can you be a good Samaritan?
Yes, if you are not a mere Spartan.
You must have the resources to help
As well as the good will to help.
At home should begin real charity,
Do not misspend money in the name of charity.
Helping undeserving people is no charity;
Giving one’s dues too is no charity.
To lead a good life you need no rule-book,
Even though a lawyer needs a law book.
Follow some good moral principles
And then you will care no obstacle.
There are people who have an open vision of life,
And there are people who have a tunnel -vision of life.
The former will see things in broad daylight,
The latter will see things in narrow search light.
Some wicked men pretend God to be on their side
And claim that they have nothing to hide.
Man can be cheated, but can God be cheated?
The schemes of the wicked will surely be defeated.
There are good people doing good things,
There are evil people doing evil things.
Can religion fully convert evil people?
Can it also partially divert good people?
Christians want crosses to wear,
Hindus want tridents to bear.
What purpose can these symbols serve
If there is no true faith to serve?
Man’s covetousness may lead him into bottomless pit
From which he cannot escape without much gambit.
Work hard and be content with what you earnestly earn
This is a way of life that you must carefully learn.
What is done for personal good dies with the person;
What is done for common good outlives the person.
The former is aggrandizement without self-denial;
The latter needs much sacrifice and self-denial.
Hope springs eternally in the human breast
Deceit springs occasionally in the human crest.
Malice darkens perennially the human spirit;
Sins of man are the work of the evil spirit
You have to walk carefully on slippery ground;
That is equally true on spiritual ground.
You have to blame yourself if you fall,
Nobody is likely to care for your call.
One who runs half the race and leaves the track
Has no reason to stop and look back.
For every runner winning or losing the race
Is at the end and not in the middle of the race.
‘Give the devil his due,’ is the saying,
Mind the dues, not the recipient, while giving.
Justice is to be done to whoever deserves it,
He may be your enemy, but do not mind it.
In disputes there should be a compromise
Which can to some extent minimise
The heat of the controversy at its worst
And bring it to a settlement at its best.
There are wages, reasonable and unreasonable,
There are workers, reliable and unreliable,
There are problems tractable and intractable,
In business take up schemes only workable.
In religions the alliance of dogmas and passions
Has to take up no pious missions.
This alliance is called fanaticism
Which invites good people’s criticism.
In your speech there should be sobriety,
In your actions there should be propriety.
These are characteristics of good behaviour
Which will in complications be your saviour.
There are habits good and bad;
As the saying goes, old habits die hard.
Do not cultivate habits that are bad;
They may die only on your death-bed.
“Sweet are the uses of adversity”,
Sweet art the fruits of generosity,
Bitter are the fruits of a sinful life,
Bitter are the memories of a wasted life.