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and said: "Cleanse me of ignorance by thy instruction?" He replied: "O fakir, or theologician! go and bear things patiently like the earth; or whatever thou hast read let it all be buried under the earth." XXII An evil-disposed man is a captive in the hands of an enemy (namely, himself); for wherever he may go he cannot escape from the grasp of that enemy's vengeance:--Let a wicked man ascend up to heaven, that he may escape from the grasp of calamity; even thither would the hand of his own evil heart follow him with misfortune. XXIII When you see discord raging among the troops of your enemy, be on your side quiet; but if you see them united, think of your own dispersed state:--When thou beholdest war among thy foes, go and enjoy peace with thy friends; but if thou findest them of one soul and mind, string thy bow, and range stones around thy battlements. * * * * * XXVI Keep to yourself any intelligence that may prove unpleasant, till some person else has disclosed it:--Bring, O nightingale! the glad tidings of the spring, and leave to the owl to be the harbinger of evil. * * * * * XXVIII Whoever is counselling a self-sufficient man stands himself in need of a counsellor. XXIX Swallow not the wheedling of a rival, nor pay for the sycophancy of a parasite; for that has laid the snare of treachery, and this whetted the palate of gluttony. The fool is puffed up with his own praise, like a dead body, which on being stretched upon a bier shows a momentary corpulency:--Take heed and listen not to the sycophant's blandishments, who expects in return some small compensation; for shouldst thou any day disappoint his object he would in like style sum up two hundred of thy defects. XXX Till some person may show its defects, the speech of the orator will fail of correctness:--Be not vain of the eloquence of thy discourse because it has the fool's good opinion, and thine own approbation. XXXI Every person thinks his own intellect perfect, and his own child handsome:--A Mussulman and a Jew were warm in argument to such a degree that I smiled at their subject. The Mussulman said in wrath: "If this deed of conveyance be not authentic may I, O God, die a Jew!" The Jew replied: "On the Pentateuch I swear, if what I say be false, I am a Mussulman like you!" Were intellect to be annihilated from the face of the earth, nobody
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