Life is in the keeping of a single breath and the world is an existence between two annihilations. Those who sell the religion for the world ‘are asses’, they sell Joseph but what do ‘they buy’? Did I not command you, O sons of Adam, that ye should not worship Satan?
On the word of a foe thou hast broken faith with a friend.
See from whom thou hast cut thyself off and to whom united.
Ten men eat at a table but two dogs will contend for one piece of carrion. A greedy person will still be hungry with the whole world, whilst a contented man will be satisfied with one bread. Wise men have said that poverty with content is better than wealth and not abundance.
Narrow intestines may be filled with dry bread
But the wealth of the surface of the world will not fill a greedy eye.
When the term of my father’s life had come to an end
He gave me this one advice and passed away:
Lust is fire, abstain therefrom,
Everyone thinks himself perfect in intellect and his child in beauty.
A Jew was debating with a Musalman
Till I shook with laughter at their dispute.
The Moslem said in anger: ‘If this deed of mine
Is not correct, may God cause me to die a Jew.’
The Jew said: ‘I swear by the Pentateuch
That if my oath is false, I shall die a Moslem like thee.’
Should from the surface of the earth wisdom disappear
Still no one will acknowledge his own ignorance.
Unless an orator’s defects are mentioned by someone, his good points will not be praised.
Be not proud of the beauty of thy speech,
Of the approbation of an ignoramus and of thy own opinion.
A fool is pleased by flattery like the inflated heel of a corpse that has the appearance of fatness.
Take care not to listen to the voice of a flatterer
Who expects cheaply to derive profit from thee.
If one day thou failest to satisfy his wishes
He enumerates two hundred faults of thine.
Whoever gives advice to a self-willed man stands himself in need of advice.
When all the artifices of an enemy have failed he shakes the chain of friendship, and thereon performs acts of friendship which no enemy is able to do.
An ill-humoured man is captive in the hands of a foe, from the grasp of whose punishment he cannot be delivered wherever he may go.
If from the hand of calamity an ill-natured man escapes into the sky
The evil disposition of his own nature retains him in calamity.
May that prince never govern a kingdom
Who is not an obedient slave to God.
It is a mistake to accept advice from an enemy but permissible to hear it; and to act contrary to it is perfectly correct.
Be cautious of what a foe tells thee to do
Lest thou strike thy knee with the hand of pain.
If he points thy way to the right like an arrow
Deflect therefrom and take that to the left hand.