He who learns, and makes no use of his learning, is a beast of burden — Saadi

"Our condition is like the darting lightning, one instant flashing and the next disappearing. Sometimes we are seated above the fourth heaven, and at other times we cannot see the back of our feet."

"In Suna’s town, my child’s life passed away; How can I tell the sadness of that day! As fair as Joseph, God creates a slave; Then, Jonah-like, he’s swallow’d by the grave. In this fair world, scarce grown, the cypress form Uprooted is, by death’s relentless storm. It is not strange the rose on earth should grow, So many rose-like bodies sleep below. Madly I longed to see his form once more, So off the tomb the weighty stone I tore. Fear seized me in that place, so dark and strange: It made me shake, and all my color change. Then came a voice (my child’s) from out the bier: "Dost thou feel terror at this darksome sight? Live, then, with care, and let thy works be bright. If thou dost wish thy grave as light as day, Illume life’s lamp with virtue’s shining ray." Saadi, he eats the fruit who plants the tree; Who sows the seed will fruitful harvests see."

"Have patience! All things are difficult before they become easy."

"When the belly is empty, the body becomes spirit; when it is full, the spirit becomes body."

"How hast thou so profound a lore attained?" "To ask another, I was ne’er ashamed."

"O brothers, Mecca is in front, and robbers in the rear. By proceeding, we escape; and, if we sleep, we die."

"Kath Two was the sort of person whose caches were apt to be crammed with paper books. For her, the electronic books were an insurance policy of sorts. The four-day elevator ride might be nothing more than a prelude to further journeys, some of which might take her to places with little to no bandwidth, and nothing was worse than getting stuck in a situation like that with nothing to read."

"But the best problem I ever found, I found in my local public library. I was just browsing through the section of math books and I found this one book, which was all about one particular problem -- Fermats Last Theorem."

"A grave thort strike me:ALL BOOKS WHICH BOYS HAV TO READ ARE WRONG"

"An extrapolation of its present rate of growth reveals that in the not too distant future Physical Review will fill bookshelves at a speed exceeding that of light. This is not forbidden by general relativity since no information is being conveyed."

"Ten hostages is terrorism; A million, and its strategy. To ban books is fanaticism; To threaten in totality All culture and all civilization, All humankind and all creation, This is a task of decorous skill And needs high statesmanship and will."

"Perhaps the only true desire of mankind, coming thus to light in its hours of leisure, is to be set at rest. One is never set at rest by Mr. Henry Jamess novels. His books end as an episode in life ends. You remain with the sense of the life still going on; and even the subtle presence of the dead is felt in that silence that comes upon the artist-creation when the last word has been read. It is eminently satisfying, but it is not final. Mr. Henry James, great artist and faithful historian, never attempts the impossible."