Dhammapada verse 113
Chapter 8, The Thousands (Sahassavagga) · verses 100–115
“Better to live a single day seeing rise and fall than to live a hundred years blind to rise and fall.”
Yo ca vassasataṁ jīve, apassaṁ udayabbayaṁ; Ekāhaṁ jīvitaṁ seyyo, passato udayabbayaṁ.
English by Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, via SuttaCentral)
What does Dhammapada verse 113 mean?
Verse 113 belongs to chapter 8, The Thousands (Sahassavagga), which gathers verses 100–115 on comparisons with a thousand. It is filed under good & evil. Read it with the verses around it: the Dhammapada arranges chapters as short runs, not as isolated lines, so verse 112 and verse 114 are part of the same passage.
Sixteen verses that keep comparing one thing to a thousand. A single meaningful saying beats a thousand meaningless ones, one day of the disciplined life beats a hundred years of the undisciplined, and the chapter turns that arithmetic toward what a person does rather than what they recite.
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