If there were no craving of the stomach, no bird would enter the snare of the fowler; nay, he would not even set the snare.

Whoever does not listen to advice will have occasion to hear reproof.

If admonition enters not thy ear
Be silent when I blame thee.

To strike one’s fist on a lion, and to grasp the sharp edge of a sword with the hand, is not the part of an intelligent man.

Do not fight or try thy strength with a furious man.
Hide thy hands in thy arm-pits to avoid his finger-nails.

If every night were to be the night of Qadr, the night of Qadr would be without Qadr.

If all stones were rubies of Badakhshan,
The price of rubies and of stones would be the same.

From a body without a heart obedience does not arise and a husk without a kernel is no stock in trade.

Not everyone who is brisk in dispute is correct in business.
Many a stature concealed by a sheet
If revealed appears to be the mother of one’s mother.

Who acquires science and does not practise it, resembles him who possesses an ox but does not use him to plough or to sow seed.

Whoever associates with bad people will see no good.

If an angel associates with a demon
He will learn from him fear, fraud and hypocrisy.
Of the wicked thou canst learn only wickedness.
A wolf will not take to sewing jackets.

Affairs succeed by patience and a hasty man fails.

I saw with my eyes in the desert
That a slow man overtook a fast one.
A galloping horse, fleet like the wind, fell back
Whilst the camel-man continued slowly his progress.

Satan cannot conquer the righteous and the sultan the poor.

Lend nothing to a prayerless man
Although his mouth may gasp from penury;
Because he who neglects the commands of God
Will also not care for what he may be indebted to thee.

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.