Charity thou art a lie,
A toy of women,
A pleasure of certain men.
In the presence of justice,
Lo, the walls of the temple
Are visible
Through thy form of sudden shadows.
There's Chamfort. He’s a sample.
Locked himself in his library with a gun,
Shot off his nose and shot out his right eye.
And this Chamfort knew how to write
And thousands read his books on how to live,
But he himself didn’t know
How to die by force of his own hand—see?
They found him a red pool on the carpet
Cool as an April forenoon,
Talking and talking gay maxims and grim epigrams.
Well, he wore bandages over his nose and right eye,
Drank coffee and chatted many years
With men and women who loved him
Some men, some men
Cannot pass a
Book shop.
(Lady, make your mind up, and wait your life away.)
Some men, some men
Cannot pass a
Crap game.
(He said he'd come at moonrise, and here's another day!)
Some men, some men
Cannot pass a
Bar-room.
(Wait about, and hang about, and that's the way it goes.)
Some men, some men
Cannot pass a
Woman.
(Heaven never send me another one of those!)
Some men, some men
Cannot pass a
Golf course.
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.
Intellect may become captive to lust like a weak man in the hands of an artful woman.
Bid farewell to pleasure in a house
Where the shouting of a woman is loud.
To consult women brings on ruin and to be liberal to rebellious men crime.
To have mercy on sharp-toothed tigers
Is to be tyrannical towards sheep.
Contention of Sa’di with a Disputant concerning Wealth and Poverty
I saw a man in the form but not with the character of a dervish, sitting in an assembly, who had begun a quarrel; and, having opened the record of complaints, reviled wealthy men, alleging at last that the hand of power of dervishes to do good was tied and that the foot of the intention of wealthy men to do good was broken.
The liberal have no money.
The wealthy have no liberality.
The wife of a dervish had become enceinte and when the time of her confinement was at hand, the dervish who had no child during all his life said: ‘If God the most high and glorious presents me with a son, I shall bestow everything I possess as alms upon dervishes, except this patched garment of mine which I am wearing.’ It happened that the infant was a son. He rejoiced and gave a banquet to the dervishes, as he had promised.
An old man, having been asked why he did not marry, replied that he could not be happy with an aged woman, and on being told that as he was a man of property, he might take a young one, he said: ‘I being an old man and unwilling to associate with an old woman, how could a young one conceive friendship for me who am aged?’
Let not a man of seventy years make love.
Thou art confessedly blind, kiss her and sleep.
The lady wants strength, not gold.
One passage is preferable to her than ten mann of flesh.
In the folly of youth I one day shouted at my mother who then sat down with a grieved heart in a corner and said, weeping: ‘Hast thou forgotten thy infancy that thou art harsh towards me?’
How sweetly said the old woman to her son
When she saw him overthrow a tiger, and elephant-bodied:
‘If thou hadst remembered the time of thy infancy
How helpless thou wast in my arms
Thou would’st this day not have been harsh
For thou art a lion-like man, and I an old woman.’
