Uprightness comes from forbearance,
Poverty comes from stinginess and greed;
Eminence comes from respect,
Lowliness comes from arrogance;
Muteness comes from slander,
Blindness and deafness come from disbelief;
Longevity comes from compassion.
Short lives come from killing;
Deficiency in faculties comes from breaking precepts,
Completeness in faculties comes from upholding precepts.

── from Fan Gu Ji
(Collection of Reverse Happenings)

Collecting books is easy, reading them is difficult.

Reading books is easy, studying them is difficult.

Studying books is easy, applying them is difficult.

Applying it is easy, remembering is difficult.

Chase not the past, hope not for the future;
the past has gone, and the future has yet to come.

Now is when one practices the truth,
and by doing so,
one lives at the present invincibly unshaken,
without any hindrances.

Be diligent today,

do what needs to be done.
Procrastinate not,
as tomorrow, death may come.
For who can bargain with the law of mortality?

If there are those,
who dwell with right mindfulness,
relentlessly through day and night,
they are whom the Peaceful Sage says
to have understood auspicious solitude.

── from Bhaddekaratta Sutra
(Discourse on the Supremacy and Wonder of Solitude)