Guidance From Ancient Egypt

Yesterday, I discovered that we have compilations of proverbs and maxims from ancient Egypt. The oldest are more than 4,000 years old, including the Instruction of Ptahhotep, composed by a vizier during the Old Kingdom. The Instruction of Ankhsheshonq, from which I picked most of the maxims listed below, is likely around 2,000 years old. There is also the Instruction of Amenemope, roughly 3,000 years old, much of which was copied directly into the biblical Book of Proverbs.

Selected maxims from The Instruction of Ankhsheshonq

1. Do not be stingy; wealth is no security.
2. In strait times or happy times wealth grows because of spreading it.
3. Do not speak hastily, lest you give offence.
4. Do not say something when it is not the time for it.
5. A wise master who asks advice, his house stands forever.
6. Muteness is better than a hasty tongue.
7. Be gentle and patient, then your heart will be beautiful.
8. He who is patient in a bad situation will not be harmed by it.
9. Serve a wise man, that he may serve you.
10. Serve him who serves you.
11. Sitting still is better than doing a mean errand.
12. Do not be too trusting lest you become poor.
13. If a gardener becomes a fisherman his trees perish.
14. Do not do a thing that you have not first examined.

Selected passages from The Instruction of Ptahhotep

Follow your heart as long as you live,
Do no more than is required
[…]
Don’t waste time on daily care
Beyond providing for your household;
When wealth has come, follow your heart,
Wealth does no good if one is glum!

If you are a man who leads,
Listen calmly to the speech of one who pleads;
Don’t stop him from purging his body
Of that which he planned to tell.
A man in distress wants to pour out his heart
More than that his case be won.

If you want a perfect conduct,
To be free from every evil,
Guard against the vice of greed:
A grievous sickness without cure,
There is no treatment for it.
[…]
It is a compound of all evils,
A bundle of all hateful things.

Know your helpers, then you prosper,
Don’t be mean toward your friends,
They are one’s watered field,
And greater then one’s riches.

Useful is hearing to a son who hears;
If hearing enters the hearer,
The hearer becomes a listener,
Hearing well is speaking well.
Useful is hearing to one who hears,
Hearing is better than all else,
It creates good will.

Distillation

Be: gentle, patient, a good listener, of service and prudent.
Do not be: hasty, mean, greedy or stingy.

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