Skip to content

To let go from my hand a flea that I have caught is a kinder act than to bestow a dirhem on a man in need. There is no difference between the black earless creature which I release and the Black Prince of Kinda who bound the tiara (on his head). Both of them take precaution (against death); and life is dear to it (the flea), and it passionately desires the means of living.

— Al-Ma'arri Studies in Islamic Poetry (1921)

Another quote →

More quotes by Al-Ma'arri

The world holds two classes of men; intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence.

To beget is to increase the sum of evil.

The lizard's ancestors are the cause of its being hunted.

The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts:
Those with brains, but no religion,
And those with religion, but no brains.

This world is such an abode that if those present here
Have their wits entire, they will never weep for the absent ones.

All Al-Ma'arri quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Al-Ma'arri (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.