Compassion

Crush not yon ant, who stores the golden grain:

He lives with pleasure, and will die with pain:

Learn from him rather to secure the spoil

Of patient cares and persevering toil...                                    Saadi

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The children of Adam and Eve are limbs of each other

having been created of one essence.

When the calamity of time afflicts one limb

the other limbs cannot remain at rest.

If thou hast no sympathy for the troubles of others

thou art unworthy to be called by the name of a human.          

                                                                                       -Saadi

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A drop of rain dripping from the clouds

Felt ashamed when it saw the vastness of the sea:

‘Where there is a sea, what am I?

If it is there, then I am nowhere.’

When it saw itself with humility

An oyster adopted it and nourished it with heart:

Fate carried on its work to such an extent

That it became a celebrated pearl, befitting a king.

It attained sublimness when it humbled itself;

Knocking at the door of non-existence, it became

Existent.                                                                              Saadi

 

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Quotes

 -Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.                                                                                                         -Plato

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   -Three things cannot be long hidden:

     the sun, the moon and the truth.                

                                                                                     -Buddha

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-Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.                                                                                                                 -Aristotle

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-Be the change that you want to see in the world.                                                                                                                       -Gandhi

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The system is not someone or something else apart from us- the system is us, and no matter what our place in it, everything we do affects the system. We create, maintain, attack, and improve it with all our actions.

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On the Effect of Education

A philosopher was advising his children as follows:

"Dear to me as life! Acquire knowledge; for there is no reliance to be placed in worldly possessions, either of land or money. You cannot take rank abroad with you; and silver and gold on a journey occasion risk, and either the thief may carry it off at one swoop, or the owner will gradually spend it: but knowledge is an ever-springing fountain, and a source of enduring wealth, and if an accomplished person ceases to be wealthy it matters not, for his knowledge is wealth existing in his mind itself. Wherever the accomplished man goes he is esteemed, and is seated in the place of honour, while the man without accomplishments has, go where he will, to pick up scraps and endure raps.

 

Learn what thy father knew, if thou wouldst hold

 his place. In ten days thou wilt spend his gold.

                                                                                     -Saadi