Chapter 17அதிகாரம் 17 ஐயம் Doubt

We measure the world with the cubit; who measures the cubit’s measure?

A cubit is an old unit of length taken from the forearm, elbow to fingertip.

Those who carry doubt keep walking; those who have let doubt carry them do not walk.

‘Nothing gets in by the locked door,’ he said, certain. And through a hole came the wind.

A doubt examined becomes knowledge; the same doubt, kept, becomes a disease that grows.

A man looked at one strand and called the rope strong; the load it must carry asks for a hundred strands.

Tap fired clay, and its clear ring tells a quality the eye cannot see.

There is ghee, there is a wick, there is the lamp, but no fire: so stands a heart full of doubt.

A grain of sand in the eye, they say, stays though the eye is shut; so does a question in the heart, toss as one may.

People take the scratching for harm; the streak that comes up on the touchstone shows the true colour.

A touchstone is a dark stone: precious metal rubbed on it leaves a streak whose colour shows how pure it is.

The pot that crossed the flood tipped over on a little stone at its own doorstep: see.