They that are sinful never seek so much to ascertain the good qualities of others as to ascertain their faults.  He that desires the highest success in all matters connected with worldly profit, should from the very beginning practise virtue, for true profit is never separated from heaven.  He whose soul hath been dissociated from sin and firmly fixed on virtue, hath understood all things in their natural and adventitious states; he that followeth virtue, profit, and desire, in proper seasons, obtaineth, both here and hereafter, a combination of all three.  He that restraineth the force of both anger and joy, and never, O king, loseth his senses under calamities, winneth prosperity.  Listen to me, O king.  Men are said to have five different kinds of strength, Of these, the strength of arms is regarded to be of the most inferior kind.  Blessed be thou, the acquisition of good counsellors is regarded as the second kind of strength.  The wise have said that the acquisition of wealth is the third kind of strength.  The strength of birth, O king, which one naturally acquireth from one’s sires and grandsires, is regarded as the fourth kind of strength.  That, however, O Bharata, by which all these are won, and which is the foremost of all kinds of strength, is called the strength of the intellect.  Having provoked the hostility of a person who is capable of inflicting great injury on a fellow creature, one should not gather assurance from the thought that one liveth at a distance from the other.  Who that is wise that can place his trust on women, kings, serpents, his own master, enemies, enjoyments, and period of life?  There are no physicians nor medicines for one that hath been struck by the arrow of wisdom.  In the case of such a person neither the mantras of homa, nor auspicious ceremonies, nor the mantras of the Atharva Veda, nor any of the antidotes of poison, are of any efficacy.  Serpents, fire, lions, and consanguineous relatives,—­none of these, O Bharata, should be disregarded by a man; all of these are possessed of great power.  Fire is a thing of great energy in this world.  It lurketh in wood and never consumeth it till it is ignited by others.  That very fire, when brought out by friction, consumeth by its energy not only the wood in which it lurketh, but also an entire forest and many other things.  Men of high lineage are just like fire in energy.  Endued with forgiveness, they betray no outward symptoms of wrath and are quiet like fire in wood.  Thou, O king, with thy sons art possessed of the virtue of creepers, and the sons of Pandu are regarded as Sala trees.  A creeper never groweth unless there is a large tree to twine round.  O king, O son of Ambika, thy son is as a forest.  O sire, know that the Pandavas are the lions of that forest.  Without its lions the forest is doomed to destruction, and lions also are doomed to destruction without the forest (to shelter them).’”

SECTION XXXVIII