One had lost his heart and bidden farewell to his life because the target which he aimed at was in a dangerous locality, portending destruction and no chance promising a morsel easily coming to the palate nor a bird falling into the trap.

When thy sweetheart’s eye has no regard for gold
Mud and gold are of equal value to thee.

I once advised him to abandon his aspiration to a fancy impossible of realization because many persons are enslaved by the same passion like himself, the feet of their hearts being in chains. He lamented and said:

It is said that a gentleman possessed a slave of exquisite beauty, whom he regarded with love and affection. He nevertheless said to a friend: ‘Would that this slave of mine, with all the beauty and good qualities he possesses, had not a long and uncivil tongue!’ He replied: ‘Brother, do not expect service, after professing friendship; because when relations between lover and beloved come in, the relations between master and servant are superseded’:

When a master with a fairy-faced slave
Begins to play and to laugh

A preacher imagined his miserable voice to be pleasing and raised useless shouts, thou wouldst have said that the crow of separation had become the tune of his song; and the verse- for the most detestable of voices is surely the voice of asses- appears to have been applicable to him. This distich also concerns him:

When the preacher Abu-l-Fares brays
At his voice Istakhar-Fares quakes.

said to a friend that I have chosen rather to be silent than to speak because on most occasions good and bad words are scattered concurrently but enemies perceive only the latter. He replied: ‘That enemy is the greatest who does not see any good.’

The brother of enmity passes not near a good man
Except to consider him as a most wicked liar.
Virtue is to the eyes of enmity the greatest fault.
Sa’di is a rose but to the eye of enemies a thorn.
The world illumining sun and fountain of light

A year of dearth set in at Alexandria so that even a dervish lost the reins of patience from his hands, the pearls of heaven were withheld from the earth and the lamentations of mankind ascended to the firmament.

There was no wild beast, fowl, fish or ant
Whose wailings prompted by distress had not reached the sky.
For a wonder the heart-smoke of the people did not condense
To form clouds and the torrents of their tears rain.

One of the ullemma had many eaters to provide for and only a slender income. This fact he communicated to a great man of whose character he entertained a very favourable opinion but his expectations were disappointed because the man made a wry face and averred that according to his opinion applications from respectable persons for aid are unbecoming.

With a face made sad by misfortune, to a dear friend
Do not go because thou wilt embitter his life also.
For the needful for which thou appliest, go with a fresh and smiling face.

I asked a good man concerning the qualities of the brethren of purity. He replied: ‘The least of them is that they prefer to please their friends rather than themselves; and philosophers have said that a brother who is fettered by affairs relating to himself is neither a brother nor a relative.’

If thy fellow traveller hastens, he is not thy fellow.
Tie not thy heart to one whose heart is not tied to thine.
When a kinsman possesses no virtue and piety
Then severing connection is better than love of kinship.

A dervish arrived in a place, the owner of which was of a noble disposition, and had surrounded himself with a company of distinguished and eloquent men, each of whom uttered something elegant or jocular, according to the fashion of wits. The dervish who had travelled through the desert and was fatigued had eaten nothing. One of the company asked him by way of encouragement likewise to say something.

Having become tired of my friends in Damascus, I went into the desert of Jerusalem and associated with animals till the time when I became a prisoner of the Franks, who put me to work with infidels in digging the earth of a moat in Tarapolis, when one of the chiefs of Aleppo, with whom I had formerly been acquainted, recognized me and said: ‘What state is this?’ I recited:

‘I fled from men to mountain and desert
Wishing to attend upon no one but God.
Imagine what my state at present is

Abu Harirah, may the approbation of Allah be upon him, was in the habit of daily waiting upon the Mustafa, peace on him, who said: "Abu Harira, visit me on alternate days that our love may increase." A man said to a devotee: "Beautiful as the sun is, I never heard that anybody took it for a friend or fell in love with it", and he replied: "This is because it may be seen daily, except in winter when it is veiled and beloved."

There is no harm in visiting people
But not till they say: "It is enough!"