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Gems From The East: A Birthday Book

By H.P. Blavatsky

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October

The consciousness of good, which neither gold,
Nor sordid fame, nor hope of heavenly bliss,
Can purchase; but a life of resolute good,
Unalterable will, quenchless desire
Of universal happiness; the heart
That beats with it in unison; the brain
Whose ever-wakeful wisdom toils to change
Reason's rich stores for its eternal weal.
This "commerce" of sincerest virtue needs
No mediative signs of selfishness,
No jealous intercourse of wretched gain,
No balancings of prudence, cold and long: —
In just and equal measure all is weighed;
One scale contains the sum of human weal,
And one, THE GOOD MAN'S HEART!
— SHELLEY.
1 The glamour of Time conceals from the weak souls of men the dark abysses around them, the terrible and mighty laws which incessantly direct their lives.

2 There is no death without sin, and no affliction without transgression.

3 Man's actions are divided, as regards their object, into four classes; they are either purposeless, unimportant, or vain, or good.

4 The sun causes day and night, divine and human. Night is for the sleep of beings, day for the performance of their duty.

5 If we were convinced that we could never make our crooked ways straight, we should for ever continue in our errors.

6 Where there are not virtue and discrimination, learning is not to be sown there, no more than good seed in barren soil.

7 A teacher is more venerable than ten sub-teachers; a father, than one hundred teachers; a mother, than a thousand fathers.

8 Let not a man, even though pained, be sour-tempered, nor devise a deed of mischief to another.

9 One is not aged because his head is grey: whoever, although a youth, has wisdom, him the gods consider an elder.

10 A wise man should ever shrink from honor as from poison, and should always be desirous of disrespect as if of ambrosia.

11 Though despised, one sleeps with comfort, with comfort awakes, with comfort lives in this world; but the scorner perisheth.

12 Trust not in business one ever caught asleep by the sun rising or setting, for thereby he incurs great sin.

13 Those who prefer to swim in the waters of their ignorance, and to go down very low, need not exert the body or heart; they need only cease to move, and they will surely sink.

14 As a man digging comes to water, so a zealous student attains unto knowledge.

15 A good man may receive pure knowledge even from an inferior; the highest virtue from the lowest.

16 Ambrosia may be extracted even from poison; elegant speech even from a fool; virtue even from an enemy; and gold from dross.

17 Whoever offers not food to the poor, raiment to the naked, and consolation to the afflicted, is reborn poor, naked, and suffering.

18 As a sower gets not his harvest if he sow seed in salt soil, so the giver gets no fruit by bestowing on the unworthy.

19 There are three things of which one never tires: health, life and wealth.

20 A misfortune that cometh from on high cannot be averted; caution is useless against the decrees of Fate.

21 The worst of maladies is envy; the best of medicines is health.

22 Three things can never be got with three things: wealth, with wishing for it; youth, with cosmetics; health, with medicine.

23 Trifling ruins earnestness, lying is the enemy of truth, and oppression perverts justice.

24 Caution can never incur disgrace; imbecility can never bring honor with it.

25 Whomsoever riches do not exalt, poverty will not abase, nor calamity cast him down.

26 Night and day are the steeds of man; they hurry him on, not he them.

27 Whoso heeds not a plaint, confesses his own meanness; and whoso makes a merit of his charity, incurs reproach.

28 There are four things of which a little goes on a long way: pain, poverty, error, and enmity.

29 He who knows not his own worth, will never appreciate the worth of others.

30 Whosoever is ashamed of his father and mother, is excluded from the ranks of the wise.

31 He who is not lowly in his own sight, will never be exalted in the sight of others.