Our birth is a mingling of pleasure and pain; the pain sanctifies the pleasure. Although opposed, the pleasure and the pain lend strength to one another. Even the thief pays for what he steals, for in getting an inch of good for his body he loses an inch of his soul. In this life God follows you as your shadow, in the next you will go as God's shadow. Seeing, suffering, and death are three teachers of men. Seeing makes men wise, suffering makes them wiser, and death makes them wisest of all. The finest music of hearts and stars is heard only in the silence of death. In every humble superstition there is greater beauty than in any vain-glorious wisdom. Man's greatest wisdom is nearer the wisdom of the horse than it is to the wisdom of God. Our bodies are only bridges over which our souls communicate with one another. Our eyes are windows of our souls, Hypocrisy is a curtain covering these windows. * * * * * What is Death? If you are freezing on a winter night, it is a warm couch. If you are hungry, it is a place where hunger is never felt. If you are persecuted, it is a kind-hearted overlord who welcomes you at the open door. If you are alone and forgotten, it is a hall where your dearest kinsmen are expecting you. If you are a sinner, then it is for you a period of pain and shame. If you are a slave, it is your liberty. * * * * * A slave came daily to a noisy brook and, sitting down, listened in silence. "Why do you come every day to me?" asked the brook. "I am condemned to silence by my tyrants, and I come to voice my complaints through your clamorous babbling." A slave listened every night to a nightingale. "Why are you listening to me?" said the bird. The answer was: "My ears are denied all day by the curses of my master, and I listen all night to your voice so that my ears may be purified." A slave looked every day towards the clouds. "O man, why do you look at us?" said the clouds. "Because," said the slave, "I hope you understand my thought, and will tell them to Him to whom you are nearer than I am." * * * * * Until a man is a father he looks back to his own father; when he is himself a father he looks forward and loses his father. Men with little wisdom have much passion; men with much wisdom have great compassion and little passion. Never in prayer try to teach God what He should do for you, but rather ask Him what you should do for Him. Too much light as well as too much darkness causes blindness. Construct a better world, and then you may say that this one is bad. When you kill a lion, you can say: "I sinned because I killed my brother." When you kill a man, you can say: "I sinned because I killed myself." If you love God, you cannot fear Him; if you fear Him, you cannot love Him. Be humble, for the worst thing in the world is of the same stuff as you; be confident, for the stars are of the same stuff as you.