My boy, a scholar’s handwriting is always illegible however hard he tries. (Kautilya)

Let just one thing not desert me, for it can do more
than a thousand armies—
My mind, to whose power a dynasty destroyed
bears witness. (Kautilya)

If you see a man who knows about administering,
Who cultivates the right circles.
And likes to get in a good spell,
He must be a snake charmer, if he’s not a politician. (The Snake Charmer)

I go on painting a picture on a nonexistent canvas. (Rakshasa)

A kingdom brings little pleasure if the king is intent on doing his duty.
In seeing to others’ interests a king loses sight of his own.
And a sovereign whose interests are unregarded is surely no sovereign.
For if he puts another’s good before his, why, he is in bondage.
And how is a man in bondage to know what pleasure means?
And even where a king is his own master, success is a hard mistress:
If he is stern, she recoils; if he is mild, she fears contempt and shuns him.
Fools she can’t stand, yet never loves the over-learned.
A hero she is afraid of, a coward she despises— Success is as hard to please as a capricious whore. (Chandragupta)

The stupid always appeal to Destiny. (Kautilya)

When I think how little Fate has been my ally in the struggle
And how devious has been the plotting of Kaut ́ılya,
For all my successful winning of his subordinates,
My nights pass in sleepless bewilderment.
Contriving the first faint outlines of a plot, and then elaborating,
Causing the hidden seeds to germinate unsuspected,
Cleverly managing the crisis, drawing together all the sprawling threads—
In these painful anxieties of creation I am working like a playwright. (Rakshasa)

When someone has renounced family, shame, honor and reputation
To sell himself to a rich man, being greedy for a moment’s wealth,
When he does that other’s bidding, what has he, a mere hireling,
Who has passed beyond problems of right and wrong, to do with such reflections? (Bhagurayana)

Turning friend into foe, foe into friend,
On grounds of practical advantage,
Politics takes a man while he still lives
Into another birth where earlier memories are lost. (Bhagurayana)

A post of authority causes even the most blameless man much anxiety.
Fear of his master may possess a servant,
Or fear of the people about him may grip his heart;
An exalted post earns the envy of the wicked,
And in his thoughts one who has climbed high can
foresee a fall as great. (Rakshasa)

Alas, the good and evil turns of man’s condition creep up on him
all unnoticed! (Rakshasa)

The things that happen make us all Fate’s servants in the end. (Rakshasa)