Proverbs From the Ancient Egyptian Temples
From the Outer Temple(3)
The best and shortest road towards knowledge of truth [is] Nature.
For every joy there is a price to be paid.
If his heart rules him, his conscience will soon take the place of the rod.
What you are doing does not matter so much as what you are learning from doing it. · It is better not to know and to know that one does not know,than presumptuously to attribute some random meaning to symbols.
If you search for the laws of harmony, you will find knowledge.
If you are searching for a Neter, observe Nature!
Exuberance is a good stimulus towards action, but the inner light grows in silence and concentration.
Not the greatest Master can go even one step for his disciple; in himself he must experience each stage of developing consciousness. Therefore he will know nothing for which he is not ripe.
The body is the house of God. That is why it is said, "Man know thyself."
True teaching is not an accumulation of knowledge; it is an awaking of consciousness which goes through successive stages.
The man who knows how to lead one of his brothers towards what he has known may one day be saved by that very brother.
People bring about their own undoing through their tongues.
If one tries to navigate unknown waters one runs the risk of shipwreck.
Leave him in error who loves his error.
Every man is rich in excuses to safeguard his prejudices, his instincts, and his opinions.
To know means to record in one's memory; but to understand means to blend with the thing and to assimilate it oneself.
There are two kinds of error: blind credulity and piecemeal criticism. Never believe a word without putting its truth to the test; discernment does not grow in laziness; and this faculty of discernment is indispensable to the Seeker. Sound skepticism is the necessary condition for good discernment; but piecemeal criticism is an error.
Love is one thing, knowledge is another.
True sages are those who give what they have, without meanness and without secret!
An answer brings no illumination unless the question has matured to a point where it gives rise to this answer which thus becomes its fruit. Therefore learn how to put a question.
What reveals itself to me ceases to be mysterious—for me alone: if I unveil it to anyone else, he hears mere words which betray the living sense: Profanation, but never revelation.
The first concerning the 'secrets': all cognition comes from inside; we are therefore initiated only by ourselves, but the Master gives the keys.
The second concerning the 'way': the seeker has need of a Master to guide him and lift him up when he falls, to lead him back to the right way when he strays.
Understanding develops by degrees.
As to deserving, know that the gift of Heaven is free; this gift of Knowledge is so great that no effort whatever could hope to 'deserve' it.
If the Master teaches what is error, the disciple's submission is slavery; if he teaches truth, this submission is ennoblement.
There grows no wheat where there is no grain.
The only thing that is humiliating is helplessness.