Dhammapada: The Fool

1Long is the night for the wakeful;

2long is the league for the weary;

3long transmigrate the fools

4who don’t understand the true teaching.

1If while wandering you find no partner

2equal or better than yourself,

3then firmly resolve to wander alone—

4there’s no fellowship with fools.

1“Sons are mine, wealth is mine”—

2thus the fool frets.

3For even your self is not your own,

4let alone your sons or wealth.

1The fool who thinks they’re a fool

2is wise at least to that extent.

3But the true fool is said to be one

4who imagines that they are wise.

1Though a fool attends to the wise

2even for the rest of their life,

3they still don’t understand the teaching,

4like a spoon the taste of the soup.

1If a clever person attends to the wise

2even just for an hour or so,

3they swiftly understand the teaching,

4like a tongue the taste of the soup.

1Fools and simpletons behave

2like their own worst enemies,

3doing wicked deeds

4that ripen as bitter fruit.

1It’s not good to do a deed

2that plagues you later on,

3for which you weep and wail,

4as its effect stays with you.

1It is good to do a deed

2that doesn’t plague you later on,

3that gladdens and cheers,

4as its effect stays with you.

1The fool imagines that evil is sweet,

2so long as it has not yet ripened.

3But as soon as that evil ripens,

4they fall into suffering.

1Month after month a fool may eat

2food from a grass-blade’s tip;

3but they’ll never be worth a sixteenth part

4of one who has appraised the teaching.

1For a wicked deed that has been done

2does not curdle quickly like milk.

3Smoldering, it follows the fool,

4like a fire smothered over with ash.

1Whatever fame a fool may get,

2it only gives rise to harm.

3Whatever good features they have it ruins,

4and blows their head into bits.

1They’d seek the esteem that they lack,

2and status among the mendicants;

3authority over monasteries,

4and honor among other families.

1“Let both layfolk and renunciants think

2the work was done by me alone.

3In anything at all that’s to be done,

4let them fall under my sway alone.”

5So thinks the fool,

6their greed and pride only growing.

1For the means to profit and the path to quenching

2are two quite different things.

3A mendicant disciple of the Buddha,

4understanding what this really means,

5would never delight in honors,

6but rather would foster seclusion.