Books - the Greatest Treasure of Mankind

New Year's Activity.  Organize your Home Library.
Dr Abe V Rotor



Author inspects piles of books ready for storage, selected ones will be
donated to reading centers, while others will be simply discarded as scrap.

Books, once the privilege of a few in pre-printing machine era, each page painstakingly handwritten, each book a well-kept treasure. 

Books, the authority, the final say, unquestioned, un-refuted, else any one rising contrary faces punishment, including death or damnation. 

Books, the diary, the ledger, the document of conquest and discovery, of battles fought, often in favor of the writer and party. 

Books, the novels that carry the greatest stories of all times are called classics, for which they are regarded timeless for their universal values.

Books, the epics of Homer, stories of the Grimm Brothers distilled from oral literature passed through generations to the present. 

Books, written ahead of their time - Galileo's astronomy, Darwin's evolution, Martin Luther's Protestantism ignited dis-pleasured of the Church.

Books, bedtime stories, baby's introduction to the world, legends and fantasies that take young ones to the land of make believe. 

Books, the record of ultimate scholarship, are the epitome of the greatest minds in thesis and dissertation, theories and principles. 

Books, the precursor of the Internet, the framework of the i-Pod, Tablet, Galaxy, and other gadgets that man becomes a walking encyclopedia. 

Books, the progeny of the earliest forms of writing like the cuneiform, hieroglyphics, caves drawings, etchings, scrolls of the Dead Sea. 

Books, that gave the idea and structure of the Wonders of the Ancient World, and the significance and belief for which they were built. 

Books, that grew with knowledge, brought new schools and movements in arts and philosophy, in unending search for truth. 

Books, the most widely read, the Bible; the shortest, Albert Einstein’s e=mc2, and book-to-cinema versions of Spielberg, Lucas, Cecile de Mills et al. 

Books, the greatest treasure of mankind, its collective attributes as humanity, the very stimulus of man's rationality to rise above other creatures - and himself.

Books, that brought about man's disobedience to his creator, playing god, and questioning if god made man, or that man made god. 

Books that enlighten man to care for the environment, guide the young and future generations to a better future, and lead man to save his own species from extinction. 
-----------------
Author's Note: Herein below is one of the lists of top 100 books of the world. There is no standard for comparison, only preferences by different sources. However, there are books that consistently appear in many lists.

100 Most Influential Books Ever Written
by Martin Seymour-Smith

Note: This list is in chronological order. I've gotten e-mails from people who complain that there are too many religious books on the list. Say what you want, but you cannot deny that religion has been influential in human history. I'm sure that's what Seymour-Smith had in mind

1.     The I Ching

2.     The Old Testament

3.     The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer

4.     The Upanishads

5.     The Way and Its Power, Lao-tzu

6.     The Avesta

7.     Analects, Confucius

8.     History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides

9.     Works, Hippocrates

10.  Works, Aristotle

11.  History, Herodotus

12.  The Republic, Plato

13.  Elements, Euclid

14.  The Dhammapada

15.  Aeneid, Virgil

16.  On the Nature of Reality, Lucretius

17.  Allegorical Expositions of the Holy Laws, Philo of Alexandria

18.  The New Testament

19.  Lives, Plutarch

20.  Annals, from the Death of the Divine Augustus, Cornelius Tacitus

21.  The Gospel of Truth

22.  Meditations, Marcus Aurelius

23.  Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Sextus Empiricus

24.  Enneads, Plotinus

25.  Confessions, Augustine of Hippo

26.  The Koran

27.  Guide for the Perplexed, Moses Maimonides

28.  The Kabbalah

29.  Summa Theologicae, Thomas Aquinas

30.  The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri

31.  In Praise of Folly, Desiderius Erasmus

32.  The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli

33.  On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Martin Luther

34.  Gargantua and Pantagruel, François Rabelais

35.  Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin

36.  On the Revolution of the Celestial Orbs, Nicolaus Copernicus

37.  Essays, Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

38.  Don Quixote, Parts I and II, Miguel de Cervantes

39.  The Harmony of the World, Johannes Kepler

40.  Novum Organum, Francis Bacon

41.  The First Folio [Works], William Shakespeare

42.  Dialogue Concerning Two New Chief World Systems, Galileo Galilei

43.  Discourse on Method, René Descartes

44.  Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes

45.  Works, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

46.  Pensées, Blaise Pascal

47.  Ethics, Baruch de Spinoza

48.  Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan

49.  Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Isaac Newton

50.  Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke

51.  The Principles of Human Knowledge, George Berkeley

52.  The New Science, Giambattista Vico

53.  A Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume

54.  The Encyclopedia, Denis Diderot, ed

55.  A Dictionary of the English Language, Samuel Johnson

56.  Candide, François-Marie de Voltaire

57.  Common Sense, Thomas Paine

58.  An Enquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith

59.  The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon

60.  Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant

61.  Confessions, Jean-Jacques Rousseau

62.  Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke

63.  Vindication of the Rights of Women, Mary Wollstonecraft

64.  An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, William Godwin

65.  An Essay on the Principle of Population, Thomas Robert Malthus

66.  Phenomenology of Spirit, George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

67.  The World as Will and Idea, Arthur Schopenhauer

68.  Course in the Positivist Philosophy, Auguste Comte

69.  On War, Carl Marie von Clausewitz

70.  Either/Or, Søren Kierkegaard

71.  The Manifesto of the Communist Party, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

72.  "Civil Disobedience," Henry David Thoreau

73.  The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Charles Darwin

74.  On Liberty, John Stuart Mill

75.  First Principles, Herbert Spencer

76.  "Experiments with Plant Hybrids," Gregor Mendel

77.  War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy

78.  Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, James Clerk Maxwell

79.  Thus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche

80.  The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud

81.  Pragmatism, William James

82.  Relativity, Albert Einstein

83.  The Mind and Society, Vilfredo Pareto

84.  Psychological Types, Carl Gustav Jung

85.  I and Thou, Martin Buber

86.  The Trial, Franz Kafka

87.  The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Karl Popper

88.  The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, John Maynard Keynes

89.  Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre

90.  The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich von Hayek

91.  The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir

92.  Cybernetics, Norbert Wiener

93.  Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell

94.  Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff

95.  Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein

96.  Syntactic Structures, Noam Chomsky

97.  The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, T. S. Kuhn

98.  The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan

99.  Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung [The Little Red Book], Mao Zedong

100.                Beyond Freedom and Dignity, B. F. Skinner

---

Source: Seymour-Smith, Martin. 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1998. © 1998 Martin Seymour-Smith.  From the Internet

I asked God for more

New Year's Reflection
Dr Abe V Rotor

 

Virgin Forest: only 3 percent is left in the Philippines. Requiem to a forest, Brooke's Point, Palawan

I asked God for food, clothing and shelter

      and He showered me

these necessities I can not live without -

      they are the Earth's bounty;

I settled down on fertile hills and valleys

      and multiplied freely.

I asked God for power to boost my strength,

      and He gave me energy;

I leveled the mountains, dammed the rivers

      and conquered the sea;

raped the forests, prairies, lakes and estuaries,

      a world I wanted to be.

I asked God if I can be god, too, all knowing

      with my technology;

broke the sacred code of life and of matter,

      changed the Great Story;

annihilated life unfit in my own design,

      and set my own destiny.

I asked God if He is but a creation of the mind,

      and rose from my knee;

probed space, rounding up the universe,

      aiming at immortality;

bolder than ever, searching for another home,

      and wanting to be free. ~

Dr Jose P Rizal: Man for All Seasons

Dedicated to the Philippines' National Hero, whose martyrdom on December 30, 1896 ignited the Philippine Revolution against Spain. 
Dr Abe V Rotor

NOTE: Rizal is not only a foremost nationalist, but a naturalist as well.  He probed his being an ecologist, a termed coined only in recent times, when he was exiled in Dapitan, an extreme rural place near Ozamis today. Here he founded a village school for children, introduced new methods of farming, planted trees, discovered new organisms, four of them were named in his honor.   

Here are sketches and portraits of Rizal discovered from very old files.

Artist's interpretation on Rizal on his way to execution at

Bagumbayan. Note lively gait and stride, and apparently jovial
conversation with the escorting military officer. It was reported
by an attending doctor that Rizal's pulse rate was normal even
as he faced the firing squad.

Artist Cabrera's study: head profile of Rizal

Rizal: boy and man

Rizal as a student in Europe.

Most popular portrait, in official documents and books.

Rizal, had he reached 90

Acknowledgment: Mr. Philip Cabrera, son of the artist; and National Historical Institute.

Synopsis of NOLI ME TANGERE - By Dr Jose Rizal

A reflection of the nationalistic fervor of Dr Jose Rizal, Philippine national hero, whose death anniversary on December 30, 2018 is commemorated nationwide and in many parts of the world.

In more than a century since its appearance, José Rizal's Noli Me Tangere has become widely known as the great novel of the Philippines. A passionate love story set against the ugly political backdrop of repression, torture, and murder, "The Noli," as it is called in the Philippines, was the first major artistic manifestation of Asian resistance to European colonialism, and Rizal became a guiding conscience—and martyr—for the revolution that would subsequently rise up in the Spanish province. - Noli Me Tangere by José Rizal, Harold Augenbraum (Translator) Penguin Books

Dr Abe V Rotor
Former Professor, Rizal Course, UST, SPU-QC
Living with Nature - School on Blog (avrotor.blogspot.com)

Having completed his studies in Europe, young Juan Crisostomo Ibarra comes back to the Philippines after a 7-year absence. In his honor, Captain Tiago throws a get-together party, which is attended by friars and other prominent figures. In an unfortunate incident, former curate Father Dámaso belittles and slanders Ibarra. But Ibarra brushes off the insult and takes no offense; he instead politely excuses himself and leaves the party because of an allegedly important task.

The day after the humbling party, Ibarra goes to see María Clara, his love interest, a beautiful daughter of Captain Tiago and an affluent resident of Binondo, Manila. Their long-standing love is clearly manifested in this meeting, and María Clara cannot help but reread the letters her sweetheart had written her before he went to Europe. Before Ibarra left for San Diego, Lieutenant Guevara, a guardia civil, reveals to him the incidents preceding the death of his father, Don Rafael Ibarra, a rich haciendero of the town.

Noli me tangere (Touch me not), biblical source of Rizal's novel, one of the world's greatest novels is ranked with War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, Le Miserables by Victor Hugo, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, among others. Noli me tangere, meaning "don't touch me" or "don't tread on me", is the Latin version of words spoken, according to John 20:17, by Jesus to Mary Magdalene when she recognized him after his resurrection.

According to the Lieutenant, Don Rafael was unjustly accused of being a heretic, in addition to being a filibuster—an allegation brought forth by Father Dámaso because of Don Rafael's non-participation in the Sacraments, such as Confession and Mass. Father Dámaso's animosity against Ibarra's father is aggravated by another incident when Don Rafael helped out on a fight between a tax collector and a student fighting, and the former's death was blamed on him, although it was not deliberate. Suddenly, all of those who thought ill of him surfaced with additional complaints. He was imprisoned, and just when the matter was almost settled, he got sick and died in jail. Still not content with what he had done, Father Dámaso arranged for Don Rafael's corpse to be dug up and transferred from the Catholic cemetery to the Chinese cemetery, because he thought it inappropriate to allow a heretic such as Don Rafael a Catholic burial ground. Unfortunately, it was raining and because of the bothersome weight of the cadaver, the men in charge of the burial decided to throw the corpse into the lake.

Revenge was not in Ibarra's plans; instead he carries through his father's plan of putting up a school, since he believes that education would pave the way to his country's progress (all over the novel the author refers to both Spain and the Philippines as two different countries which form part of a same nation or family, being Spain the mother and the Philippines the daughter). During the inauguration of the school, Ibarra would have been killed in a sabotage had Elías—a mysterious man who had warned Ibarra earlier of a plot to assassinate him—not saved him. Instead the hired killer met an unfortunate incident and died. The sequence of events proved to be too traumatic for María Clara who got seriously ill but was luckily cured by the medicine Ibarra sent her

After the inauguration, Ibarra hosts a luncheon during which Father Dámaso, uninvited and gate-crashing the luncheon, again insults him. Ibarra ignores the priest's insolence, but when the latter slanders the memory of his dead father, he is no longer able to restrain himself and lunges at Father Dámaso, prepared to stab the latter for his impudence. As a consequence, Dámaso excommunicates Ibarra. Father Dámaso takes this opportunity to persuade the already-hesitant father of María Clara to forbid his daughter from marrying Ibarra. The friar wishes María Clara to marry a Peninsular named Linares who just arrived from Spain.

With the help of the Captain-General, Ibarra's excommunication is nullified and the Archbishop decides to accept him as a member of the Church once again. But, as fate would have it, some incident of which Ibarra had known nothing about is blamed on him, and he is wrongly arrested and imprisoned. But the accusation against him is overruled because during the litigation that followed, nobody could testify that he was indeed involved. Unfortunately, his letter to María Clara somehow gets into the hands of the jury and is manipulated such that it then becomes evidence against him.

Meanwhile, in Captain Tiago's residence, a party is being held to announce the upcoming wedding of María Clara and Linares. Ibarra, with the help of Elías, takes this opportunity and escapes from prison. But before leaving, Ibarra talks to María Clara and accuses her of betraying him, thinking that she gave the letter he wrote her to the jury. María Clara explains to Ibarra that she will never conspire against him but that she was forced to surrender Ibarra's letter to her in exchange for the letters written by her mother even before she, María Clara, was born. The letters were from her mother, Pía Alba, to Father Dámaso alluding to their unborn child; and that she, María Clara, is therefore not the daughter of Captain Tiago, but of Father Dámaso.

Afterwards, Ibarra and Elías board a boat and flee the place. Elías instructs Ibarra to lie down and the former covers the latter with grass to conceal the latter's presence. As luck would have it, they are spotted by their enemies. Elías thinks he could outsmart them and jumps into the water. The guards rain shots on the person in the water, all the while not knowing that they are aiming at the wrong man.

María Clara, thinking that Ibarra has been killed in the shooting incident, is greatly overcome with grief. Robbed of hope and severely disillusioned, she asks Father Dámaso to confine her into a nunnery. Father Dámaso reluctantly agrees when María Clara threatens to take her own life. demanding, "the nunnery or death!" taken the shots. It is Christmas Eve when Ibarra wakes up in the forest, gravely wounded and barely alive. It is in this forest that Ibarra finds Basilio and his lifeless mother, Sisa.
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References: Light from the Old Arch, AVRotor; and Wikipedia

Musical versions of Noli on stage and screen.

Rip van Winkle Junior

Dr Abe V Rotor

 Rip Van Winkle, the legendary character in Washington Irving's short story of the same tile.  Acknowledgment: Wikipedia, Internet.

A balikbayan was visiting his hometown. He wanted to relive his pleasant childhood. There is something irresistible, a homing instinct that draws many balikbayan to come home in the later years of their lives. Some wish to be buried in the town of their birth.

His townmates called him Tatang, a courtesy to a much older person who is like a father. In fact Tatang means father. To earn this title is not easy.

“You must be part of the people,” a Filipino sociologist said. “And you must have the respectability and touch.” But the most important qualification he mentioned is that you have to have children of your own who call you tatang in the biological sense. In the case of Tatang Ramon, his title is sociological.

Which gives essence to the term kapamilya, connoting extended family. Indeed that’s how small the hometown of Tatang Ramon is. Kinship is by consanguinity, affinity and by being a kababayan, rolled in one.

Tatang Ramon felt easy with the people especially the children, and he felt reciprocated. Well, this is what you call touch. Tatang Ramon had the touch when he talked, even with a slight slang that gives an inkling he is a balikbayan from the states. He had the touch when greeting his kababayan and talking to them. And he had a good memory; he could relate people to one another, at least people in his generation, with something interesting about them.

He is indeed a balikbayan – he is bringing out beautiful memories weaving them with the happenings of a changing world. He even talked of post-modern living, giving emphasis to the prefix, to stress the fact that we are "living in the future." What with space exploration, the Internet and cloning - but he did not dwell much on these for fear he might not be understood.

One day Tatang Ramon found a young man scratching the ground with a stick. He was reminded of his bible. There is a part where Christ was meditating scratching the ground with a stick – which up to now no one knows what He wrote. Around him were angry people who were about to stone a woman to death because she committed a grave sin. Christ rose and said, “He who has no sin casts the first stone.” No one dared. The people left and Christ said to the woman, “Go and sin no more.”

Tatang Ramon approached the fellow who was seemingly in deep reflection. He didn’t know what attracted him to do so. Apparently the fellow was sad and lonely. He needed comfort, at least company. He was writing something on the ground which could not be deciphered. To his surprise, he found out that the fellow is the son of a classmate of his in the elementary.

“What’s you name, young man?” he asked

“Jun,” he quipped, “Jun po … Tang.” Short for tatang. And he talked about his father.

“Why, you look like your father.”

You can imagine how the two fell into a familiar conversation, such as what Tatang Ramon and Jun’s father Tatang Juan had in common, what they did in school, but more important what they did after school. Oh, they fished in the river, rode bicycle together, played sipa and competed in nearby towns. It’s a novel if you are patient to hear everything. Tatang Ramon cut the story, “…then I left for the states … finished college … raised a family … found a good job … my children are on their own now… and here I am, a balikbayan.”

Jun did not say a thing. He heard Tatang Ramon all right.

One qualification how the title Tatang is earned is to be able to advise effectively. Even if you are not a sociologist this is basic. And what do you think Tatang Ramon did?

He gave an unsolicited advice. He cleared his throat, sat beside Jun like a father should to a troubled son.

“You see Jun, when you finish college you will meet people and visit different places. You will find a good job. And you will free yourself from the cares and worries of the world.” He paused, waiting for a response. There was none.

“You will simply enjoy the leisure of life.” The balikbayan flashed a friendly grin, thinking he had driven well his point.

The simpleton momentarily stopped scratching the ground, looked at his new mentor and casually spoke.

“And what do you think I’m doing now, 'Tang?"

Tatang Ramon felt he does not deserve the title – what with Jun’s response?

His mind found solace in his readings. He realized Rip van Winkle is still alive. He is in our midst.

Rip van Winkle is the principal character of a short story of the same title written by Washington Irving in the late 17th century.

Rip van Winkle was a very lazy person, a henpeck husband who left home and went up the mountain on a leisurely hunting and did not return until twenty years later. He fell asleep for twenty long years!

“Who am I?” He asked the villagers when he found his way back to his village. Everything had changed, it was a new era. America was now an independent nation. Madam Winkle had long been gone. When he finally reached his old home, a young man was scratching the ground with a stick. His house was still there but was falling apart.

“I am Rip Van Winkle!” The old man cried. “Can’t anyone recognize me?” He paused and got closer to the young man and examined him from head to foot. He looked familiar. "And who are you?"

“I am Rip van Winkle,” came a wry answer.

x x x

The Art of Loafing

 Dr Abe V Rotor

 UST graduate students on a field trip, Peñablanca, Pampanga, 2010

Be like Thoreau and Darwin,

world's greatest loafers,

toying ideas that shock the world

by Civil Disobedience,

and Survival of the Fittest.

For the mind soars to the sky

by imagination more than reason,

and time is kindest

when the body stops working

and the spirit calm,

To nurture the hidden genius,

in sparks and spurts,

otherwise spilled to waste

in worries and cares,

and undue haste.

Churchill by the Thames,

painted peace,

when the sky was burning,

and thunder and bomb

were but one sound.

Audubon's birds were real

like living specimens,

with time at his command;

and Solomon halted his army

to let the ants pass in band.

Loafing, the habit and the art,

robs and rewards:

he by the hearth falls asleep

in spring; and who fishes ideas

with a fishing pole. ~

50 Verses of Meditation

Dr Abe V Rotor
For class reading with background music of Meditation (From the Thais), by Massenet. Teacher sets the sequence in meditative mood.

Fr Miguel Benavides, founder University of Santo Tomas (1611)

1. When the skies cry and tears fall,
The grass is greener, so with the soul.

2. The rain pelts on the faces of children
Turned heavenward. Look my brethren.

3. Walks he alone in the rain singing,
Whether the wind's cool or the sun peeping.

4. If I'm responsible for what I tame,
Would I have a choice of only the lame?

5. A gentle breeze came through a lid;
Where's the window when the wall's solid?

6. Pray, but if Thor holds back the lightning bolts,
We may not have mushroom and the jolts.

7. Hush! Suddenly the world became still;
Gone is the lark or the raven on the sill.

8. Saxon wall, each turret a guard-
Now empty, lonely is war afterward.

9. Radial symmetry starts from the center,
That balances an outside force to enter.

10. What good is a lamp at the ledge?
Wait 'til the day reaches its edge.

11. In seeing our past we find little to share,
If the past is the present we're living in.

12. In abstract art you lose reality;
How then can I paint truth and beauty?

13. Brick wall, brick roof, brick stair,
Glisten in the rain, dull in summer air.

14.What's essential can't be seen by the eye
Like the faith of Keller and Captain Bligh.

15. Similar is rainbow and moth in flight
When you see them against the light.

  A slice of rainbow

16. From respite in summer fallow,
The fields start a season anew.

17. From green to gold the grains become
As they store the power of the sun.

18. Not all sand dunes for sure
Ends up on empty shore.

19. One little smoke tells the difference,
Like a faint pulse is life's reference.

20. It's collective memory that I'm a part
To write my life's story when I depart.

21. Lost time, lost opportunity and lost gain,
like passing wind that may not come again.

22. Who sees silver lining of clouds dark and bold
seeks not at rainbow's end a pot of gold.

23. A clenched fist softens under a blue sky
like high waves, after tempest, die.

24. When a flock of wild geese takes into the air
a leader must get ahead to break the barrier.

Swallows on wire. Florida Blanca, Pampanga

25. Even to a strong man, a little danger may create
the impression he's small or the problem is great.

26. In the doldrums or during sudden gusts,
the ship is much safer with a bare mast.

27. Wind, current, and keel make a perfect trio
only if they have one direction to follow.

28. You really can't tell where a sailboat goes
without keel, but to where the wind blows.

29. The sound of a yes may be deep or hollow,
and knowing it only by its own echo.

30. Walk, don't run, to see better and to know
the countryside, Mother Nature and Thou.~

31. We do not have the time, indeed an alibi
to indolence and loafing, letting time pass by.

Sun on a hazy day

32. As we undervalue ourselves, so do others
undervalue us. Lo, to us all little brothers.

33. Self-doubt at the start is often necessary
to seek perfection of the trade we carry.

34. What is more mean than envy or indolence
but the two themselves riding on insolence.

35. The worst kind of persecution occurs in the mind,
that of the body we can often undermine.

36. How seldom, if at all, do we weigh our neighbors
the way we weigh ourselves with the same favors?

37. Friendship that we share to others multiplies
our compassion and love where happiness lies.

38. Evil is evil indeed - so with its mirror,
while goodness builds on goodness in store.

39. That others may learn and soon trust you,
show them you're trustworthy, kind and true.

40. Kindness and gladness, these however small
are never, never put to waste at all.

41. Beauty seen once breaks a heart,
Wait for the image to depart.

42. Being right and reasonable;
Black or white, and measurable.

43. She's coy who speaks soft and light;
Smoke first before fire ignites.

44. Every promise you can't keep
Drags you into a deeper pit.

45. To endure pain of hatred,
A leader’s wisdom is dared.

46. Make believe prosperity;
Sound of vessel when empty.

47. Take from the ant or stork,
Patience is silence at work.

48. Good wine grows mellow with age;
Good man grows into a sage.

49. He finds reason for living
Who sees a new beginning.

50. Beauty builds upon beauty,
Ad infinitum to eternity. ~