The wise say that it is not an iron, wooden or fiber fetter which is a strong one, but the besotted hankering after trinkets, children and wives, that, say the wise, is the strong fetter. It drags one down, and loose as it feels, it is hard to break. Breaking this fetter, people renounce the world, free from longing and abandoning sensuality.

As an irrigator guides water to his fields, as an archer aims an arrow, as a carpenter carves wood, the wise shape their lives.

Whatever an enemy might do to an enemy, or a foe to a foe, the ill-directed mind can do to you even worse.

If a man does what is good, let him do it again; let him delight in it; happiness is the outcome of good.

Do not look at the faults of what others have done or not done; observe what you yourself have done or not done.

I do not perceive even one other thing, O monks, that when undeveloped and uncultivated entails such great suffering as the mind. The mind when undeveloped and uncultivated entails great suffering.

As a single drop of water fills a bucket, so do small deeds of evil; as a single drop of water fills a bucket, so do small deeds of good.