Quotes by Arab Authors - Page 2

An agile, well-trained, brave elephant, ridden by a good mahout, its trunk armed with the kind of sabre known as a qartal and covered with chain mail, while the rest of its body is protected by sheets of bark and iron, surrounded by 500 men to defend it and protect it to the rear, can fight against 6000 men on horseback.
Al-Mas'udi
He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.
Ali ibn Abi Talib
If all the women over the world have been permitted to be married to only one man, except one woman. He'd love to marry that woman. That is the imprint of man
Ali ibn Abi Talib
People differ to such a degree they agree on nothing,Except death that is, and even on that they disagree.Some say the soul goes on after the death of the bodyWhile others claim the soul, with the body, dies too.
Mutannabi
There is no wealth like knowledge, no poverty like ignorance.
Ali ibn Abi Talib
The sciences were financially supported, honoured everywhere, universally pursued; they were like tall edifices supported by strong foundations. Then the Christian religion appeared in Byzantium and the centres of learning were eliminated, their vestiges effaced and the edifice of Greek learning was obliterated. Everything the ancient Greeks had brought to light vanished, and the discoveries of the ancients were altered out of recognition.
Al-Mas'udi
I am amazed at the heart of man: It possesses the substance of wisdom as well as the opposites contrary to it ... for if hope arises in it, it is brought low by covetousness: and if covetousness is aroused in it, greed destroys it. If despair possesses it, self piety kills it: and if it is seized by anger, this is intensified by rage. If it is blessed with contentment, then it forgets to be careful; and if it is filled with fear, then it becomes preoccupied with being cautious. If it feels secure , then it is overcome by vain hopes; and if it is given wealth, then its independence makes it extravagant. If want strikes it, then it is smitten by anxiety. If it is weakened by hunger, then it gives way to exhaustion; and if it goes too far in satisfying its appetites, then its inner becomes clogged up. So all its shortcomings are harmful to it, and all its excesses corrupt it.
Ali ibn Abi Talib
If you want Allah to be persistent in granting you the thing you love, then be persistent in doing the things he loves.
Imam Ahmad
The moment you start arguing with an ignorant fool, you have already lost.
Ali ibn Abi Talib
O Allah, You know me better than I know myself, and I know myself better than these people who praise me. Make me better than what they think of me, and forgive those sins of mine of which they have no knowledge, and do not hold me responsible for what they say.
Abu Bakr al-Siddiq
You are as much able as you know
Ali ibn Abi Talib
He who called her so called her by her true name, for she is the full moon of full moons, afore God!
Umar Ibn Muhammed Al-Nefzawi
Anyone who has learned the Quran and holds it lovingly in his heart will 'value his nights when people are asleep, his days when people are given to excess, his grief when people are joyful, his weeping when people laugh, his silence when people chatter and his humility when people are arrogant'. In other words every moment of life will be precious to him, and he should therefore be 'gentle', never harsh nor quarrelsome, 'nor one who makes a clamour in the market nor one who is quick to anger'.
Ibn Mas'ud
We should not be ashamed to acknowledge truth and to assimilate it from whatever source it comes to us, even if it is brought to us by former generations and foreign peoples. For him who seeks the truth there is nothing of higher value than truth itself; it never cheapens or debases him who reaches for it but ennobles and honors him.
Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi
Verily, knowledge is a lock and its key is the question.
Imam Ja'Far Al-Sadiq
Be like the flower that gives its fragrance to even the hand that crushes it.
Ali ibn Abi Talib
The world is 3 days: As for yesterday, it has vanished along with all that was in it. As for tomorrow, you may never see it. As for today, it is yours, so work on it.
al-Hasan al-Basri