How hast thou so profound a lore attained?" — Saadi

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

"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."

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

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

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

"He—in whose nature, is the ugly disposition Sees not the peacock,—only his ugly foot."