all its shortcomings are harmful to it, and all its excesses corrupt it.’ ‘Ask your hearts about friendship, for surely it is a witness that cannot be bribed.’ ‘Kindle your heart with courteous behaviour just as you kindle a fire with fuel.’ ‘Surely hearts grow tired just as bodies grow tired, so seek out the novelties of wisdom for them.’ ‘The most self-sustaining wealth is the intellect.’ ‘The intellect is a king and the characteristics are its subjects, so if it is weak in governing them, disorder overtakes it.’ ‘The intellect is better than desire, for the intellect makes you king over your destiny, and desire makes you a salve of your destiny.’ ‘Bodies are sustained by food, and intellects are sustained by wisdom, and whenever either of them is deprived of its sustenance then it perishes and disintegrates.’ ‘Keep company with the people of intellect, whether they are your enemies or your friends, for surely one intellect is only confirmed by another intellect.’ ‘If the intellect is given a free reign, and if it is not imprisoned by the desires of the self or by religious customs or by partisanship, then it will lead the one who possesses it to salvation.’ ‘When Allah wishes to remove a favour from His servant, the first thing He changes in him is his intellect.’
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