Arabian Wisdom Part 11

AVARICE, STINGINESS, GREED

Avarice and faith in G.o.d can never live together in the heart of man.

Avarice and ill-nature have no place in the heart of a good man.

Avarice is the parent of all evil dispositions.

The riches of an avaricious man go either to naught or to an heir.

He who is close-fisted shall be treated in a like manner.

A man who is miserly to himself cannot be generous to others.

An avaricious man is more lavish of his life than of his money.

A liberal man lives on his riches, a miser is eaten up by them.

A miser lives the life of a poor man in this world, and will be judged as a rich man in the world to come.

He who makes his morsel large will be choked.

Avarice is the murderer of the miser.

Greed is the mate of sorrow.

Strong wine is not more destructive to reason than greed.

An old man continues to be young in two things--love of money and love of life.

COMPLAINT, BLAME

To G.o.d alone I make my plaint of sorrow and grief (_Koran_ 12, 86).

To bewail grief, except to G.o.d, is an humiliation.

Lamentation is the weapon of the weak.

A good man sees his own faults and is blind to the faults of others.

Censure your friend by kindness, and return the evil which he may have done to you by acts of favour.

To blame a friend is better than to lose him.

No man is free from faults.

If you count your friend's faults you will have no friend left.

An absent man has his apology with him.

He who compels you to blame him has made up his mind to forsake you.

Open blame is better than secret malice.

Blame not, nor boast, until a year and a half shall have pa.s.sed away.

He who has a needle under his arm it will p.r.i.c.k him.

There is no wood which has no smoke in it.

Among all snakes there is not one that is good.

You are your own enemy.

MARRIAGE

The advantages of marriage are purity of life, children, pleasures of home, and the happiness of exertion for the comfort of wife and children.

This life is a joy, and its greatest delight is a good wife.

An honourable marriage is a stepping-stone to honour.

Take a wife not for her beauty, but for her virtues.

Chast.i.ty united to beauty makes a wife perfect.

Three things contribute to long life--a large house, an obedient wife, and a swift horse.

The violence of love vanishes soon after marriage. If the love of bride and bridegroom were to endure, the Resurrection Day would be at hand.

A man has no portion in the love of women when he becomes grey, or when he loses his fortune.

The lover's eye is blind.

The disgrace of a woman is abiding.

Take the high-road, though it turn; and marry a woman of good birth, though she may have been pa.s.sed by.

Women are the snares of Satan.

Happy is the woman who dies before her husband.

It is better to have a thousand enemies out of the house than one in it.

The girl who has many suitors, and makes no choice of one of them, is doomed to become an old maid.