Saadi Shirazi Poems

An intelligent youth possessed an abundant share of accomplishments and discreet behaviour so that he was allowed to sit in assemblies of learned men but he refrained from conversing with them. His father once asked him why he did not likewise speak on subjects he was acquainted with. He replied: ‘I fear I may be asked what I do not know and be put to shame.’

Hast thou heard how a Sufi drove
A few nails under his sandals
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A padshah having issued orders to kill an innocent man, the latter said: ‘"O king, seek not thine own injury on account of the anger thou bearest towards me." He asked: "How?" The man replied: "This punishment will abide with me one moment but the sin of it for ever with thee."

The period of life has passed away like the desert wind.
Bitter and sweet, ugliness and beauty have passed away.
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Even after falling into mud a jewel retains its costliness, and dust, although it may rise into the sky, is as contemptible as before. Capacity without education is deplorable and education without capacity is thrown away. Ashes are of high origin because the nature of fire is superior, but as they have no value of their own, they are similar to earth and the price of sugar arises not from. the cane but from its own quality.

The land of Canaan having no natural excellence,
The birth of a prophet therein could not enhance its worth.
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A king of the Arabs, having been informed of the relations subsisting between Laila and Mejnun, with an account of the latter’s insanity, to the effect that he had in spite of his great accomplishments and eloquence, chosen to roam about in the desert and to let go the reins of self-control from his hands; he ordered him to be brought to his presence, and this having been done, he began to reprove him and to ask him what defect he had discovered in the nobility of the human soul that he adopted the habits of beasts and abandoned the society of mankind. Mejnun replied:

‘Many friends have blamed me for loving her.
Will they not see her one day and understand my excuse?’
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A sage having been asked whether liberality or bravery is better replied: ‘He who possesses liberality needs no bravery.’

It is written on the tomb of Behram Gur:
‘A liberal hand is better than a strong arm.’
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Galenus saw a fool hanging on with his hands to the collar of a learned man and insulting him, whereon he said: ‘If he were learned he would not have come to this pass with an ignorant man.’

Two wise men do not contend and quarrel
Nor does a scholar fight with a contemptible fellow.
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An envious man is avaricious with the wealth of God and hates the guiltless as foes.

I saw a crackbrained little man,
Reviling a possessor of dignity,
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said to a friend that I have chosen rather to be silent than to speak because on most occasions good and bad words are scattered concurrently but enemies perceive only the latter. He replied: ‘That enemy is the greatest who does not see any good.’

The brother of enmity passes not near a good man
Except to consider him as a most wicked liar.
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