4 ideas
The sages gather at the golden coffin of Alexander and each delivers a one-line verdict, such as that the man who ruled the earth now occupies a few cubits of it, or that yesterday he spoke to command and today his silence teaches more. The scene turns a single death into a structured lesson: worldly power is shown to be temporary exactly at the moment it seemed greatest.
The sayings repeatedly argue that speech is the faculty most likely to destroy a person. Words once spoken cannot be recovered, while silence can always be broken later. The wise person therefore delays speech and weighs it before speaking, and treats restraint as the safer default.
The maxims contrast wisdom with money, rank and property. Those can be stolen, taxed, inherited by fools or lost at death. Wisdom stays with its holder and grows when it is given away, so the real measure of a person's wealth is what they know and how they govern themselves, not what they own.
In the sages' model, reason must command the appetites the way a king commands subjects. A person enslaved to anger, greed or pleasure is unfit to advise or govern anyone else. Contentment with little is treated as the practical proof that reason is in charge, because the greedy person stays poor whatever they gain.