Dhammapada verse 114
Chapter 8, The Thousands (Sahassavagga) · verses 100–115
“Better to live a single day seeing the state free of death than to live a hundred years blind to the state free of death.”
Yo ca vassasataṁ jīve, apassaṁ amataṁ padaṁ; Ekāhaṁ jīvitaṁ seyyo, passato amataṁ padaṁ.
English by Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, via SuttaCentral)
What does Dhammapada verse 114 mean?
Verse 114 belongs to chapter 8, The Thousands (Sahassavagga), which gathers verses 100–115 on comparisons with a thousand. It is filed under good & evil, impermanence & death. Read it with the verses around it: the Dhammapada arranges chapters as short runs, not as isolated lines, so verse 113 and verse 115 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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