The Kural in life
Conduct is the real nobility.
Valluvar makes a quietly radical claim. Good conduct is what truly marks a person as nobly born; a lapse from it drops them, in effect, to a lower standing — whatever their actual birth. Nobility, in this verse, is not inherited but enacted: you belong to a high 'family' by how you behave, not by whose child you are.
Parimelazhagar: the low-born of good conduct rise; the high-born who lapse fall.
Parimelazhagar states the two movements plainly: someone born into a humble place but holding to good conduct becomes, in effect, high; someone born high but lapsing in conduct becomes, in effect, low. Conduct moves a person up or down the only ranking that finally matters — the moral one — overriding the accident of birth.
You are 'from' how you act.
We still say a person is 'classy' or 'has no class' meaning nothing about their birth and everything about their behaviour — Valluvar's point exactly. The dignity that conduct confers, and the disgrace that its lapse brings, follow the deeds, not the lineage. It is an oddly liberating doctrine: the one nobility actually open to everyone is the one you make.
Conduct, not birth, is the real nobility — it can raise the low and lower the high.
Valluvar's quietly radical claim: good conduct is what truly marks noble standing, and a lapse drops a person to a lower one — whatever their birth. Parimelazhagar states both moves: the humble of good conduct rise, the high-born who lapse fall. Conduct overrides the accident of birth on the only ranking that finally counts.
Earn your standing by how you act, not what you inherited.
Don't lean on background — name, wealth, pedigree — for your dignity; and don't be cowed by lacking it. The standing that lasts is the one you enact through conduct, and it can raise anyone or lower anyone regardless of birth. We still call people 'classy' for how they behave, never how they were born. Build the one nobility open to all.