Great Throughts Treasury

"The smallest good deed is better than the grandest good intention."

"The smaller the margin, the greater the turnover."

"The slug always leaves a trail to follow."

"The starving dog fears not the stick."

"The spirit of a three-year-old lasts a hundred years."

"The strong will protect the weak and, in return, the weak will serve the strong."

"The stake that sticks out gets hammered down."

"The talented hawk hides its claws"

"The superior prevails, the inferior breaks."

"The tongue is more to be feared than the sword."

"The Wind of Impermanency does not choose a time."

"The task of the priest is to save mankind."

"The tongue is but three inches long, yet it can kill a man six feet high."

"The tone of the bird's song is the same everywhere."

"The winds may fell the massive oak, but bamboo, bent even to the ground, will spring upright after the passage of the storm."

"There are as many ways of making a living as seeds of grass."

"The young monk before the gate can read sutra without studying them."

"There are even bugs that eat knotweed. (There's no accounting for taste. To each his own.)"

"There are formalities between the closest of friends."

"There are no national frontiers to learning."

"There are some gods that abandon men - they are the gods that know men."

"There is luck in the last helping."

"There is no fence to the Three States of Existence;--there is no neighborhood to the Six Roads."

"There is no flower that remains red for ten days, and no power that lasts for ten years."

"There is no medicine to apply to a fool."

"There is no miracle in true doctrine."

"There is no King on the Road of Death."

"There is no rest within the Three States of Existence."

"There is no shore to the bitter Sea of Birth and Death."

"There is nothing that cannot be achieved by firm imagination."

"Though you drink wine, do not be drunk by wine."

"There is seldom anything to win where there is no adversity of some sort."

"There's no point in clenching your buttocks after you have farted,"

"Things will never be as you imagine, so you're better off not seeing them. / Reality can't compete with imagination."

"This world is only a resting-place."

"Though the flame be put out, the wick remains."

"Though we see the seven defects of others, we do not see our own ten defects."

"Thunderclap from a clear sky. (A bolt from the blue. A complete surprise.)"

"Tigers die and leave their skins; people die and leave their names."

"Though you speak of a beautiful woman, it is only one layer of skin."

"Time flies like an arrow."

"Time spent laughing is time spent with the Gods."

"To be over-polite is to be rude."

"To become an abbot one must begin as a novice."

"To each his/her own. Different strokes for different folks."

"To draw water into one's own rice field"

"To die is easy, to live is hard."

"To gamble as the dice fall."

"To fall seven times, to rise eight times"

"To endure what is unendurable is true endurance."