Tirukural

CHAPTER 12

Impartiality

111

Justice may be called good when it acts impartially toward enemies, strangers and friends.§

112

The wealth of those who possess justice will not perish; rather it will be their posterity’s soothing security.§

113

However prosperous it may seem, all wealth gained by loss of rightness must be relinquished that very day.§

114

In their offspring one may doubtlessly discern who are the just and who are the unjust.§

115

Adversity and prosperity never cease to exist. The adornment of great men’s minds is to remain unswervingly just under both.§

116

When his heart forsakes fairness and his deeds turn depraved, a man realizes deep within himself, “I am ruined.”§

117

Though a man is profoundly impoverished, if he remains just, the world will not regard him as poor.§

118

To incline to neither side, like a balance scale’s level beam, and thus weigh impartially is the wise one’s ornament.§

119

Speech uttered without bias is integrity, if no unspoken bias lurks in the heart.§

120

Those businessmen will prosper whose business protects as their own the interests of others.§