- Whoso is intelligent, he is (dear to us as) our soul :his breeze and wind is our sweet basil.’
- هر که او عاقل بود از جان ماست ** روح او و ریح او ریحان ماست
- (If) intelligence revile me, I am well-pleased, because it possesses something that has emanated from my emanative activity.
- عقل دشنامم دهد من راضیم ** زانک فیضی دارد از فیاضیم
- Its revilement is not without use, its hospitality is not without a table; 1950
- نبود آن دشنام او بی‌فایده ** نبود آن مهمانیش بی‌مایده
- (But) if the fool put sweetmeat on my lip, I am in a fever from (tasting) his sweetmeat.”
- احمق ار حلوا نهد اندر لبم ** من از آن حلوای او اندر تبم
- If you are goodly and enlightened, know this for sure, (that) kissing the arse of an ass hath no (delicious) savour.
- این یقین دان گر لطیف و روشنی ** نیست بوسه‌ی کون خر را چاشنی
- He (the unsavoury fool) uselessly makes your moustache fetid; your dress is blackened by his kettle without (there being) a table (of food).
- سبلتت گنده کند بی‌فایده ** جامه از دیگش سیه بی‌مایده
- Intelligence is the table, not bread and roast-meat: the light of intelligence, O son, is the nutriment for the soul.
- مایده عقلست نی نان و شوی ** نور عقلست ای پسر جان را غذی
- Man hath no food but the light: the soul does not obtain nourishment from aught but that. 1955
- نیست غیر نور آدم را خورش ** از جز آن جان نیابد پرورش
- Little by little cut (yourself) off from the (material) foods –– for these are the nutriment of an ass, not that of a free (noble) man ––
- زین خورشها اندک اندک باز بر ** کین غذای خر بود نه آن حر
- So that you may become capable of (absorbing) the original nutriment and may eat habitually the dainty morsels of the light.
- تا غذای اصل را قابل شوی ** لقمه‌های نور را آکل شوی