O servants of God, use medicine: because God hath not created a pain without a remedy for it, to be the means of curing it, except age; for that is a pain without a remedy. He who is not loving to God's creatures and to his own children, God will not be loving to him. The truest words spoken by any poet are those of Lebid, who said, "Know that everything is vanity except God." Verily he who believeth fighteth with his sword and tongue: I swear by God, verily abuse of infidels in verse is worse to them than arrows. Meekness and shame are two branches of faith, and vain talking and embellishing are two branches of hypocrisy. The calamity of knowledge is forgetfulness, and to lose knowledge is this, to speak of it to the unworthy. Who pursueth the road to knowledge, God will direct him to the road of paradise; and verily the angels spread their arms to receive him who seeketh after knowledge; and everything in heaven and earth will ask grace for him; and verily the superiority of a learned man over a mere worshiper is like that of the full moon over all the stars. Hearing is not like seeing: verily God acquainted Moses of his tribe's worshiping a calf, but he did not throw down the tables; but when Moses went to his tribe, and saw with his eyes the calf they had made, he threw down the tables and broke them. Be not extravagant in praising me, as the Christians are in praising Jesus, Mary's Son, by calling him God, and the Son of God; I am only the Lord's servant; then call me the servant of God, and his messenger. It was asked, "O Messenger of God, what relation is most worthy of doing good to?" He said, "Your mother"; this he repeated thrice: "and after her your father, and after him your other relations by propinquity." God's pleasure is in a father's pleasure, and God's displeasure is a father's displeasure. Verily one of you is a mirror to his brother: Then if he see a vice in his brother he must tell him to get rid of it. The best person near God is the best among his friends; and the best of neighbors near God is the best person in his own neighborhood. Deliberation in undertaking is pleasing to God, and haste is pleasing to the devil. The heart of the old is always young in two things: in love for the world, and length of hope. _Of Death_ Wish not for death any one of you; either a doer of good works, for peradventure he may increase them by an increase of life; or an offender, for perhaps he may obtain the forgiveness of God by repentance. When the soul is taken from the body, the eyes follow it, and look toward it: on this account the eyes remain open.