A mendicant with a good end is better than a padshah with a bad end.

The grief thou sufferest before the joy
Is better than the grief endured after joy.

The earth receives showers from heaven and gives to it only dust. Every vessel exudes what it contains.

If my humour appears to thee unbecoming
Lose not thy own good humour.

Fortunate men are admonished by the adventures and similes of those who have preceded them, before those who follow them can use the event as a proverb, like thieves who shorten their hands, lest their hands be cut off.

The bird does not go to the grain displayed
When it beholds another fowl in the trap.
Take advice by the misfortunes of others
That others may not take advice from thee.

Whoever does not betake himself to the path of rectitude in consequence of the castigations of this world will fall under eternal punishment in the next. Allah the most high has said: And we will cause them to taste the nearer punishment of this world besides the more grievous punishment of the next.

Admonition is the address of superiors and then fetters.
If they give advice and thou listenest not, they put thee in fetters.

When God draws the sword of wrath, prophets and saints draw in their heads, but if he casts a look of grace, he converts wicked into virtuous men.

If at the resurrection he addresses us in anger
What chance of pardon will even prophets have?
Say: ‘Remove the veil from the face of mercy
Because sinners entertain hopes of pardon.’

The will of the Inscrutable brings down one from the royal throne, and protects the other in the belly of a fish.

Happy is the time of the man
Who spends it in adoring thee.

One of the requirements for society is to attend to the affairs of thy household and also at the house of God.

Tell thy tale according to thy hearer’s temper,
If thou knowest him to be biased to thee.
Every wise man who sits with Mejnun
Speaks of nothing but the story of Laila’s love

It is contrary to what is proper, and against the opinion of to partake of medicine by guess and to go after a caravan without seeing the road. The Imam Murshid Muhammad Ghazali, upon whom be the mercy of Allah, having been asked in what manner he had attained such a degree of knowledge, replied: ‘By not being ashamed to ask about things I did not know.’

The hope of recovery is according to reason,
That he should feel thy pulse who knows thy nature.
Ask what thou knowest not; for the trouble of asking

Although a sultan’s garment of honour is dear yet one’s own old robe is more dear; and though the food of a great man may be delicious, the broken crumbs of one’s own sack are more delicious.

Vinegar by one’s own labour and vegetables
Are better than bread received as alms, and veal.

A man without virility is a woman and an avaricious devote is a highway robber.

O thou, who hast put on a white robe for a show,
To be approved of men, whilst the book of thy acts is black.
The hand is to be restrained from the world,
No matter whether the sleeve be short or long.