Serbia in Light and Darkness Part 9

If you kill a solitary man, his kinsmen from the other world will persecute you.

n.o.body can forever conceal what is good in you, nor can you yourself conceal what is evil.

There is no real death except the death of the soul.

There is no real joy except the joy of a righteous man.

The joy of the sinner is half joy and half retribution.

The eyes are the controller of the tongue. A clever man tells his lies with his eyes closed.

What is the news?

There is no news but what is half old.

It is better to talk about what you know than to talk about what you do not know.

He who can love pa.s.sionately can hate pa.s.sionately. Maternal love is most enduring, a brother's hatred the shortest.

There is no harvest without seed. We see often a harvest of evil, the seed of which time has concealed.

In the life to come all our senses will be doubled and quadrupled, so that when we see we shall see not only with our eyes but with our whole being, and when we hear and when we smell or taste it is the same. Thus will it be where the morning sun s.h.i.+nes always.

We see only the beams of the sun, but the spirits also hear them; we hear the song of the nightingale, but the spirits also see it.

In the next world what we now hear we shall see; what we now see we shall hear, and shall taste what we now smell.

Gold s.h.i.+nes, and by s.h.i.+ning speaks. How can you understand its language?

G.o.d does, because He sent its language to the gold.

What is man? Something between G.o.d and clay.

What is clay? Something that G.o.d makes.

What is G.o.d? Something of which clay and man are the shadow.

It is no wonder that an animal should be selfish, not knowing its end.

But it is wonderful that man can be selfish, knowing and foreseeing his end.

A Turk once asked a Serb why the Serbs wept so much. The Serb replied, "To wash away your Turkish sins."

A Turk asked a Serb why the Serbs reminded people of the field of Kossovo. "Because," said the Serb, "our dead are better than your living."

All men are born in an impure state, but only the good reach a state of purity in life and in death.

Men are unhappy when striving to know all truth, because truth is greater than their life, and for this life only a small part of truth is necessary.

A wolf, asked when he would stop killing sheep, replied, "When man stops killing man."

The gra.s.s in the field, asked if it were not ashamed always to see nothing but the feet of men, replied: "Not so much ashamed as men should be when they never see our heads."

A good custom hallows life and keeps men in brotherly unity.

Not G.o.d, but the prophets make division among men.

G.o.d likes it more if you think, than if you speak about Him. In speaking evil of Him you do harm not only to yourself, but to your hearers too.

Different languages, but the same prayer; different prayers, but the same G.o.d.

G.o.d is the spirit and form-maker; man is only the imitator of the form-maker.

A silver piece, asked what it was worth, replied: "If a man could s.h.i.+ne as I can, then I am merely worth a man."

When the Lord speaks you have to be silent; and the Lord speaks in the night through the stars, in the day through better men than you.

The foolish man speaks much because he has to apologise his foolishness, but why must you speak so much?

The man who fears customs fears the touch of dead and living.

Under every success lies a new enemy, the demon of pride.

Do not despise even the cicadas; their song is the only solace to the slave in prison.

Among all immoderate things the unrestrained tongue is the most annoying.

Death is not a punishment for him that dies, but a warning for the living.

A long work and a short prayer edifies the house, but a long prayer and a short work destroys it.

Life without prayer--night without moonlight.

G.o.d is not hidden, but our eyes are too small to see Him.

The smile in the suns.h.i.+ne is easy and common; the smile in the stormy weather is beautiful and rare.

It is better to go to bed hungry than with a stolen supper in the stomach.