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Flowers and fruit are never combined in one place: it is impossible that teeth and delicacies should exist simultaneously.
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Formerly, people used to grieve over the departed, but in our days they grieve over the survivors.
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To the seeker after pearls, silence is a speaking argument, for no breath comes forth from the diver of the sea.
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The roots of the aged palm tree exceed those of the young one; the old have a greater attachment to the world.
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The touchstone of false friends is the day of need: by way of proof, ask a loan from your friends.
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The wave is ignorant of the true nature of the sea: how can the temporal comprehend the eternal?
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The weeping of the candle is not in mourning for the moth: the dawn is at hand, and it is thinking of its own dark night.
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Ten doors are opened if one door be shut: the finger is the interpreter of the dumb man's tongue.
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If I am mad, then who on the face of the earth is sane? If you are sane, then there is no madman in the world.
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Seek for the truth from the heart which is empty of thought.
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When poison becomes a habit, it ceases to injure: make your soul gradually acquainted with death.
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The life of this transitory world is the expectation of death: to renounce life is to escape from the expectation of annihilation.
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Peace is in proportion to every pause: observe the difference between to run, to walk, to stand, to sit, to lie, to die.
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The march of good fortune has backward slips: to retreat one or two paces gives wings to the jumper.
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Become placeless, for to change this place of water and clay is but to move from one prison to another.
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In this market every head has a different fancy: everyone winds his turban in a different fashion.
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When a man becomes old, his greed becomes young: sleep grows heavy at the time of morning.
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The rosary in the hand, repentance on the lips, and the heart full of sinful longings-sin itself laughs at our repentance!
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What does it profit you that all the libraries of the world should be yours? Not knowledge but what one does with knowledge is your profit.
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To quit this troubled world is better than to enter it: the rosebud enters the garden with straitened heart and departs smiling.