"Sweetness of knowledge is greater than the sweetness of honey"

The following is an excerpt from Hikayat Munshi Abdullah:

At times the question came to my mind: "What good is my life to me? I have no leisure from day to day, but have to sit and study instead of going out to play and to visit my friends" and as the thought came I cried in my sadness and mortification.

My mother came into the room and said when she saw me "Why are you crying for no good reason?" And I replied "Rather than live like this I should be better dead, for I am not treated as other children are." My mother said "What do you mean? Are you not fed and clothed? And if you are not like the child of a rich man, still as a poor man's son your father cherishes you; why then do you cry needlessly?"

And I replied "Even if you gave me gold every day it would be no good to me if I did not like it. See how my father makes me study every day, not once in a while, but so that I have no time off. He will not let me go visiting with my friends. I am like a man in the grave. Day and night there is work to be done."

When my mother heard my words she put her arms round my neck and kissed me on the face saying "My child, why be so stupid? You have not yet reached years of discretion. You are still a child and cannot yet appreciate for yourself the value of learning. Later you will understand its value and be grateful to your parents. Are you not my only child? If you do not learn to read and write the Korean [should be 'Koran'] as the children of the best families do, when you are older great may be your regret that your parents did not teach you these good things.

"Now you feel a bitterness greater than the bitterness of gall, but later on you will realize a joy above the sweetness of honey. Then at last you will be grateful for the providence of your parents.

"Supposing we two left you any amount of material possessions, if you gained no benefit they would give you but a transient pleasure. But good learning is not like this. Only when life leaves your body will it too leave you." Verily my mother's words were the truth, for now at last I know that the sweetness of knowledge is greater than the sweetness of honey.

- Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir, The Hikayat Abdullah, An Annotated Translation by A.H. Hill (Oxford University Press, 1970): 50 (paragraphing added)

Munshi Abdullah (1796-1854) was a renowned Malayan writer.