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Men of acute mind call me an ascetic, but they are wrong in their diagnosis. Although I disciplined my desires, I only abandoned worldly pleasures because the best of these withdrew themselves from me.

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

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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.

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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.