Kural 1058 · இரப்பாரை இல்லாயின் ஈர்ங்கண்மா ஞாலம்
If there were no seekers, this wide and gracious world would be like a wooden puppet moving to and fro.
The Eighteen Lesser Texts, including the Thirukkural.
If there were no seekers, this wide and gracious world would be like a wooden puppet moving to and fro.
Where no one is willing to take by asking, what renown could the givers have?
The seeker must not be angry when refused; his own distress in poverty is enough to bear witness to another's plight.
Not begging, even before those dear as the eye who give gladly without concealing, is worth ten million times more.
If the maker of the world has willed that men must live even by begging, may he himself wander about and perish.
There is no hardness harder than the hardness that resolves, 'I shall end the pain of poverty by begging.'
The nobility that will not stoop to beg, even when there is no place or means, is so great that the whole world cannot contain it.
Though it be only gruel thin as water, nothing is sweeter than eating what one's own effort has brought.
Even if it is only to ask water for a cow, nothing is more demeaning to the tongue than the word of begging.
I beg of all who beg this one thing: if you must beg, do not beg of those who conceal.