In plain words
The company of the good is not found on this earth; the wicked, however many, are always to be found. Pebbles on the earth there are in any number; it is the diamond of true worth one must search for.
Students! Teachers! Lovers of learning!
The lamp has a special power. This power is not found in any other thing in the world. This special power is the very power that gives light and drives darkness away. That is why, from ancient times, the people of Bhārata have given the lamp a special importance. For holy rites, and for any sacred undertaking, they first perform the worship of the lamp. They bow down to the lamp. Not only this: they show the lamp to be the path of light that awakens humanity to divinity. With ceaseless effort, with constant striving, with endless hopes and with longings he cannot understand, man tries to attain, in the light of this divine lamp, the form that is beyond reach. For this sacred principle, this is not the only proof. The lamp has another rare quality. Wherever it is lit, its flame goes upward and never downward. This is what they called ‘ūrdhvamūlam’. They showed this to be the path to God, the path to Brahman. They taught that the downward course is the path of sin, and this darkness. In the world, this light drives away only the outer darkness; it cannot drive away the inner darkness. This light cannot drive away the darkness of ignorance that has hardened in man's heart over many births. It cannot in the least root out the cast of mind stained with the impurities of attachment and hatred.
Rāvaṇa had Kubera for his elder brother. He had the mighty Kumbhakarṇa for his younger brother. He had a son called Indrajit, who had conquered Indra. He had not one head but ten heads of his own. Twenty arms. Laṅkā was a city that made one forget heaven. Though he had such strength and power, and though he enjoyed so many pleasures, he could not root out the darkness that was in his mind. As for the nature of a man without purity of mind: whatever comforts, whatever learning, whatever positions and whatever kinds of power he may have, a man who lacks this very purity of mind cannot attain the principle of Jñāna.