Not to do any evil,
To cultivate good,
To purify one’s mind–
This is the advice of the Buddhas.
-Dhammapada

A layman who has chosen to practice this Dhamma should not indulge in the drinking of intoxicants. He should not drink them nor encourage others to do so, realizing that it leads to madness. Through intoxication foolish people perform evil deeds and cause other heedless people to do likewise. He should avoid intoxication, this occasion for demerit, which stupefies the mind, and is the pleasure of foolish people.
-Sutta Nipata

A man approached the Blessed One and wanted to have all his philosophical questions answered before he would practice.

In response, the Buddha said, “It is as if a man had been wounded by a poisoned arrow and when attended to by a physician were to say, ‘I will not allow you to remove this arrow until I have learned the caste, the age, the occupation, the birthplace, and the motivation of the person who wounded me.’ That man would die before having learned all this. In exactly the same way, anyone who should say, ‘I will not follow the teaching of the Blessed One until the Blessed One has explained all the multiform truths of the world’-that person would die before, the Buddha had explained all this.”

-Majjhima Nikaya

Do not choose bad friends.
Do not choose persons of low habits.
Select good friends. Be discriminating.
Choose the best.
-Dhammapada

Even royal chariots
well-embellished
get run down,
and so does the body
succumb to old age.

But the Dhamma of the good
doesn’t succumb to old age:
the good let the civilized know.
-Dhammapada

A monk with a manifold joy,
with faith in the Awakened One’s teaching,
would attain the good state,
the peaceful state:
stilling-of-fabrications ease.

A young monk who strives
in the Awakened One’s teaching,
brightens the world
like the moon set free from a cloud.
- Dhammapada

When tranquillity is developed, what purpose does it serve? The mind is developed. And when the mind is developed, what purpose does it serve? Passion is abandoned. When insight is developed, what purpose does it serve? Discernment is developed. And when discernment is developed, what purpose does it serve? Ignorance is abandoned.
- Anguttara Nikaya

A hundred thousand elephants, A hundred thousand horses, A hundred thousand mule-drawn chariots, Are not worth a sixteenth part Of a single step forward.
- Buddha

Drinking the Dhamma, refreshed by the Dhamma, one sleeps at ease with clear awareness & calm. In the Dhamma revealed by the noble ones, the wise person always delights.
- Dhammapada

It’s better to leave a misdeed undone. A misdeed burns you afterword. Better that a good deed be done that, after you’ve done it, won’t make you burn.
- Dhammapada