Saadi - Gulistan (1258)

12 Sourced Quotes

View all Saadi Quotes
In the faculty of speech man excels the brute; but if thou utterest what is improper, the brute is thy superior.

Saadi
Were the diver to think on the jaws of the shark, he would never lay hands on the precious pearl.

Saadi
Whatever makes an impression on the heart seems lovely in the eye.

Saadi
I never lamented about the vicissitudes of time or complained of the turns of fortune except on the occasion when I was barefooted and unable to procure slippers. But when I entered the great mosque of Kufah with a sore heart and beheld a man without feet I offered thanks to the bounty of God, consoled myself for my want of shoes and recited:
'A roast fowl is to the sight of a satiated man
Less valuable than a blade of fresh grass on the table
And to him who has no means nor power
A burnt turnip is a roasted fowl.'

Saadi
Who despises an insignificant enemy resembles him who is careless about fire.

Saadi
There is a difference between him who claspeth his mistress in his arms, and him whose eyes are fixed on the door expecting her.

Saadi
If thou covetest riches, ask not but for contentment, which is an immense treasure.

Saadi
The whelp of a wolf must prove a wolf at last, notwithstanding he may be brought up by a man.

Saadi
Use a sweet tongue, courtesy, and gentleness, and thou mayst manage to guide an elephant with a hair.

Saadi
Whatever is produced in haste goes easily to waste.

Saadi
When gnats act in concert they will bring
down an elephant: when ants set to work,
and move in a body, they can strip a fierce
lion of it's hide

Saadi
Whoever interrupts the conversation of others to make a display of his own fund of knowledge, makes notorious his own stock of ignorance.

Saadi