Look at the true nature of this body! Though decorated beautifully, this body is a skeleton plastered by heaps of flesh. It is a series of illnesses. Though ignorant people consider it with much appreciation, in this body there is nothing stable or lasting.
—The Buddha, Dhammapada 147
As an expert garland maker makes many garlands from a heap of flowers, you who obtained the human life should do many wholesome deeds.
—The Buddha, Dhammapada 53
Happiness is virtue until life’s end; happiness is well established faith in the Buddha; happiness is the attainment of wisdom; and happiness is not doing evil.
—The Buddha, Dhammapada 333
The person obsessed by sense pleasures chases after them as a garland maker searches for flowers. Although he has not fully satisfied himself with sense pleasures, Māra brings him under his control.
—The Buddha, Dhammapada 48