Quotes from Ali ibn Abi Talib

Not every man with a heart is understanding, nor every man with an ear a listener, and nor every man with eyes able to see.

The best deed of a great man is to forgive and forget.

Be afraid of a dignified man when he is hungry and a wicked man when his belly is full.

The weakest man is the one who is able to correct his moral defects, but doesn't take action.

A man is hid under his tongue.

An alert and learned man will take advice from any event.

A man's behavior is the index of the man, and his discourse is the index of his understanding.

Half of wisdom is love and friendship with people.(the other half is to guard yourself against the evils of people)

During civil disturbance adopt such an attitude that people do not attach any importance to you - they neither burden you with complicated affairs, nor try to derive any advantage out of you.

The best revenge is to improve yourself.

He who busies himself with things other than improvement of his own self becomes perplexed in darkness and entangled in ruin. His evil spirits immerse him deep in vices and make his bad actions seem handsome.

Poverty is the worst form of death.

Detachment is not that you should own nothing, but that nothing should own you.

The one who has no control over his desires has no control over his mind.

One who rushes madly after inordinate desire, runs the risk of encountering destruction and death.

No wealth like education and no poverty like ignorance

Always consider your intellect to be lacking; otherwise too much faith in it surely leads to error.

Do not take someone's silence as his pride, perhaps he is busy fighting with himself.

Fear the sins that you commit in secret, because the Witness of those sins is the Judge Himself!

Two things cause people to be destroyed: fear of poverty and seeking superiority through pride.

The outcome of fear is disappointment and shyness is frustration.

The nourishment of body is food, while the nourishment of the soul is feeding others.

I was not created to be occupied by eating delicious foods like tied up cattle.

Love is not love, Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove.