1. No one in this world is more wretched than a man burdened with consciousness. 2. Feeling alone—that is the single thing that divides man from beast. 3. Not only the emotionless man becomes hollow; the overly emotional man, too, rings just as empty. 4. Bear pain long enough, and peace itself becomes a wound. 5. The one who sells the salve for pain—that salve does not work for him alone! 6. The clock's hand is life's greatest friend. 7. Honesty takes courage to swallow; courage, in turn, demands honesty. What a strange chain it is! 8. Never argue with a schoolteacher or a rickshaw driver—these two kinds of men will have none of it. 9. Your brother is not my brother, very well. But your brother becoming my brother-in-law— you remember that, don't you? 10. Only when a man sacrifices his very last possession—that alone deserves to be called love.
# A Small Basket of Words There is a certain kind of poverty that exists in words themselves. Not the poverty of their number—languages have endless proliferation—but the poverty of their reach, their ability to touch the thing they mean to say. A word is like a vessel, and what we pour into it often spills over the edges, or settles at the bottom, never quite filling the whole. I have spent much time watching words fail. Watching them fall short of love, of grief, of the small quiet moments that matter most. We say "I love you" a thousand times, and each time the word grows thinner, more threadbare. It becomes a habit, a courtesy, a coin passed so many times its image wears away. Yet we persist. We keep speaking, keep reaching for words as though they might, someday, say what we truly mean. There is something brave in this persistence, something almost foolish. Like a child filling a basket with pebbles, knowing they will fall through the holes, yet filling it anyway. The paradox is this: we cannot live without words, yet no word is ever large enough. The most important truths slip between them like water through fingers. And yet—and yet—sometimes, rarely, a word lands precisely where it was meant to go. It strikes something true in the listener, something that resonates like a bell struck in the dark. In those moments, the vessel holds. The meaning doesn't spill. And we feel, briefly, that we have been understood. Perhaps that is all language can ever do. Not say the thing completely, but create the space where understanding might occur. A small basket, yes—but woven with care, and offered with hope.
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