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RENUNCIATION FOR EVER
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and water and who wear their twisted locks as long as snakes ?
“When they hear of the miseries of those who are intent on pleasure and are devoted to worldly pursuits it well befits the self-controlled to fling it away.
“Success in pleasure is to be considered a misery in the man of pleasure, for he becomes intoxicated when the pleasures of his desire are attained; through intoxication he does what should not be done, not what should be done ; and being wounded thereby he falls into a miserable end.
“These pleasures which are gained and kept by toil, which after deceiving leave you and return whence they came,—these pleasures which are but borrowed for a time,—what man of self-control, if he is wise, would delight in them ?
“What man of self-control could find satisfaction in these pleasures which are like a torch of hay,—which excite thirst when you seek them and when you grasp them ?
“What man of self-control could find satisfaction in these pleasures which are like flesh that has been flung away, and which produces misery by their being held in common with kings ?
“What man of self-control could find satis faction in these pleasures, which, like the senses, are destructive, which bring calamity on every hand to those who abide in them ?
“Those men of self-control who are bitten by them in their hearts, fall into ruin and attain not bliss—what man of self-control could find satisfaction in these pleasures, which are like an angry, cruel serpent ?
“Even if they enjoy them men are not satisfied,— like dogs famishing with hunger over a bone,—what man of self-control could find satisfaction in these pleasures, which are like a skeleton composed of dry bones ?
“He whose intellect is blinded with pleasures, the wretch, who is the miserable slave of hope for the
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