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C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Maxims

By Sa’dī (c. 1213–1291)

From the ‘Rose-Garden’: Translations of the Kama Shastra Society and John T. Platts

  • 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.
  • Nothing is better for an ignorant man than silence; and if he were to consider it to be suitable, he would not be ignorant.

  • If thou possess not the perfection of excellence,
  • It is best to keep thy tongue within thy mouth.
  • Disgrace is brought on a man by his tongue.
  • A walnut having no kernel will be light.
  • A fool was trying to teach a donkey,
  • Spending all his time and efforts in the task;
  • A sage observed: “O ignorant man, what sayest thou?
  • Fear blame from the censorious in this vain attempt.
  • A brute cannot learn speech from thee,
  • Learn thou silence from a brute.”
  • He who acquires knowledge and does not practice it, is like him who drives the plow and sows no seed.