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Wise people, after they have listened to the laws, become serene, like a deep, smooth, and still lake.
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“Wise people, after they have listened to the laws, become serene, like a deep, smooth, and still lake.”

The Dhammapada

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Source
The Dhammapada
Date
ancient
English wording
F. Max Müller — Translator · from Pali
Meaning

Meaning of “Wise people, after they have listened to the…”

The still-lake image links serenity with disciplined understanding: calm is portrayed not as blankness but as a settled mind shaped by hearing and absorbing the teaching.

Source context

Where does it come from?

Dhammapada 82, F. Max Müller translation, Project Gutenberg #2017. The verse belongs to a Buddhist canonical collection and remains a textual source voice rather than a quotation by a modern individual author.

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Themes

Ideas connected with this quotation

CalmInner PeaceMindfulnessPeaceWisdom Quotes About Judgment & Living WellKnowledgeListeningSerenitySpiritual
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Who can (make) the muddy water (clear)? Let it be still, and it will gradually become clear.
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“Who can (make) the muddy water (clear)? Let it be still, and it will gradually become clear.”

Lao Tzu · Tao Teh King · ancient
Meaning & context

The muddy-water image makes stillness a condition for clarity: agitation can keep disturbance suspended, while enough quiet allows what is clouding perception to settle without force.

Source details

Tao Teh King, Chapter 15, James Legge translation, Project Gutenberg #216. The next sentence asks how the condition of rest is secured and answers through the gradual relation between movement and rest; the passage belongs to Taoist philosophy, not a clinical relaxation technique.

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As you succeed in overcoming self you will begin to see things in their right relations.
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“As you succeed in overcoming self you will begin to see things in their right relations.”

James Allen · The Way of Peace · 1901
Meaning & context

For Allen, clearer perception follows disciplined work on one’s own impulses and biases; self-mastery changes not only conduct but the proportions in which problems are seen.

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The Way of Peace; Allen links self-mastery with clearer perception and a less distorted relationship to circumstances and other people.

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Demand not that events should happen as you wish; but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well.
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“Demand not that events should happen as you wish; but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well.”

Epictetus · Enchiridion · c. 125
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Peace is sought by aligning desire with reality rather than requiring reality to obey preference, a central Stoic distinction between response and circumstance.

Source details

Enchiridion, section 8; Epictetus applies Stoic acceptance to events outside personal control.

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To be in the world and yet not of the world is the highest perfection, the most blessed peace, is to achieve the greatest victory.
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“To be in the world and yet not of the world is the highest perfection, the most blessed peace, is to achieve the greatest victory.”

James Allen · The Way of Peace · 1901
Meaning & context

Allen defines peace as freedom from being inwardly ruled by surrounding pressures, presenting self-command and spiritual detachment as a deeper victory than external conquest.

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Holiness alone is undying peace.
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“Holiness alone is undying peace.”

James Allen · The Way of Peace · 1901
Meaning & context

Allen contrasts lasting peace with temporary comfort or outward victory, then immediately connects the durable state he describes with self-control and an increasing orientation toward wisdom.

Source details

The Way of Peace, “The Realization of Perfect Peace,” Project Gutenberg #10740. The sentence follows Allen’s contrast between temporary peace from comfort or worldly victory and what he calls the enduring “Peace of Heaven”; the theological framework is retained rather than recast as clinical advice.

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