Speak so between two enemies that thou mayest not be put to shame if they become friends.

Between two men contention is like fire,
The ill-starred back-biter being the wood-carrier.
When both of them become friends again
He will among them be unhappy and ashamed.
To kindle fire between two men
Is not wise but is to burn oneself therein.
Converse in whispers with thy friends
Lest thy sanguinary foe may hear thee.
Take care of what thou sayest in front of a wall

Reveal not thy secret to any man although he may be trustworthy, because no one can keep thy secret better than thyself.

Silence is preferable than to tell thy mind
To anyone; saying what is to remain unsaid.
O simpleton, stop the source of the spring.
When it becomes full, the brook cannot be stopped.

Confide not to a friend every secret thou possessest. How knowest thou that he will not some time become thy foe? Inflict not every injury thou canst upon an enemy because it is possible that one day he may become thy friend.

The amity of princes and the sweet voice of children are not to be trusted, because the former is changed by fancy and the latter in the course of one night.

Give not thy heart to a sweetheart of a thousand lovers,
And if thou givest it, thou givest that heart for separation.

I was holding a disputation with a company of learned men in the cathedral mosque of Damascus when a youth stepped among us, asking whether anyone knew Persian, whereon most of them pointed to me. I asked him what the matter was and he said that an old man, aged one hundred and fifty years, was in the agony of death but saying something in Persian which nobody could understand and that if I were kindly to go and see him I might obtain the information whether he was perhaps desirous of making his last will. When I approached his pillow, he said:

A virtuous and beauteous youth
Was pledged to a chaste maiden.
I read that in the great sea
They fell into a vortex together.
When a sailor came to take his hand,
Lest he might die in that condition,
He said in anguish from the waves:
‘Leave me. Take the hand of my love.’
Whilst saying this, he despaired of life.
In his agony he was heard to exclaim:
‘Learn not the tale of love from the wretch
Who forgets his beloved in distress.’
Thus the lives of the lovers terminated.

A man whose hands and feet had been amputated killed a millipede and a pious passer-by exclaimed: ‘Praised be Allah! In spite of the thousand feet he possessed he could not escape from a man without hands and feet when his fate had overtaken him.’

When the life-taking foe comes in the rear
Fate ties the legs of a running man.
At the moment when the enemy has slowly arrived
It is useless to draw the Kayanian bow.

It is narrated in the life of Ardeshir Babekan that he asked an Arab physician how much food he must consume daily. He replied: ‘The weight of one hundred dirhems will be enough.’ The king queried: ‘What strength will this quantity give me?’ He replied: ‘This quantity will carry thee, and whatever is more than that, thou wilt be the carrier of it.’

Eating is for living and praying.
Thou thinkest living is for eating.

I saw a holy man on the seashore who had been wounded by a tiger. No medicine could relieve his pain; he suffered much but he nevertheless constantly thanked God the most high, saying: ‘Praise be to Allah that I have fallen into a calamity and not into sin.’

If that beloved Friend decrees me to be slain
I shall not say that moment that I grieve for life
Or say: What fault has thy slave committed?
My grief will be for having offended thee.

Someone had brought information to Nushirvan the just that an enemy of his had been removed from this world by God the most high. He asked: "Hast thou heard anything about his intending to spare me?"

There is no occasion for our rejoicing at a foe’s death
Because our own life will also not last for ever.