# Kabir's most famous dohas (couplets)

The couplets of the 15th-century poet-saint Kabir that are still taught in Indian schools and quoted every day, with a simple meaning. From Hindi Wikiquote.

- 0 votes · 12 items
- May 6, 2023 · Amit Yadav
- https://even.best/en/l/1511/kabir-s-most-famous-dohas-couplets

## Top 12

1. **The world died reading books, yet no one became wise. / Who reads the two and a half letters of love becomes wise.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Book learning doesn't make you wise; understanding love does.
2. **Slowly, slowly, O mind, everything happens slowly. / The gardener may pour a hundred pots, but fruit comes in its season.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Be patient: everything happens in its own time.
3. **Guru and God both stand before me: whose feet should I touch first? / I bow to the guru, who showed me the way to God.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The teacher comes first, because he showed the way.
4. **The clay says to the potter: why do you trample me? / A day will come when I will trample you.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Don't be proud: in the end, we all return to the earth.
5. **Everyone remembers God in sorrow, no one in joy. / If you remembered Him in joy, why would sorrow come?** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — People only pray when things go wrong.
6. **Don't ask a holy man his caste, ask about his knowledge. / Value the sword, and leave the sheath aside.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Judge people by their wisdom, not their caste.
7. **What use is being big, like the date palm? / It gives no shade to the traveller and its fruit hangs far too high.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Greatness is worthless if it doesn't help others.
8. **Those who searched, found, diving into deep water. / I, poor fool, feared drowning and sat on the shore.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Those who dare find; those who fear stay with nothing.
9. **Lord, give me just enough for my family. / So I don't go hungry, nor does any guest who comes to my door.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Ask only for enough, and enough to share.
10. **Ages passed turning the rosary, yet the mind never turned. / Drop the beads in your hand and turn the beads of your mind.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Rituals are worthless if your heart doesn't change.
11. **You lost the night sleeping and the day eating. / A birth precious as a diamond, traded for a cowrie shell.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Don't waste the priceless gift of life.
12. **Desire gone, worry gone, the mind is carefree. / Whoever needs nothing is the king of kings.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Whoever wants nothing is the richest of all.

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