(121) O beauty, pleasure and voluptuousness of this world! O riches and proud stateliness! O might and power! Thy unrighteous judgment and great pomp, with all thy pleasure and voluptuousness, lie all together on a heap, and are become a hellish fire!

(16) "Shame upon thee, O soul, for thy overweening love of the world! If thou dost not believe in heaven or hell, at any rate thou believest in death, which will snatch from thee all worldly delights and cause thee to feel the pangs of separation from them, which will be intenser just in proportion as thou hast attached thyself to them. Why art thou mad after the world? If the whole of it, from East to West, were thine and worshipped thee, yet it would all, in a brief space, turn to dust along with thyself, and oblivion would blot out thy name, as those of ancient kings before thee. But now, seeing thou hast only a very small fragment of the world, and that a defiled one, wilt thou be so mad as to barter eternal joy for it, a precious jewel for a broken cup of earthenware, and make thyself the laughingstock of all around them?"

(8) The desires beget harm in this world and beyond: here, by bondage, slaughter, and loss of limb; beyond, in hell. That for the sake of which thou hast bowed many a time before bawds, heeding not sin nor infamy, and cast thyself into peril and wasted thy substance, that which by its embrace has brought thee supreme delight — it is naught but bones, now free and unpossessed; wilt thou not take thy fill of embraces now, and delight thyself? This was the face that erstwhile turned downwards in modesty and was unwilling to look up, hidden behind a veil whether eyes gazed upon it or gazed not; and this face now the vultures unveil to thee, as though they could not bear thy impatience. Look on it — why dost thou flee now from it?...

(168) O thou lying devil, stay but a little, the spirit will discover thy shame to thee; tarry but a little while longer, and thy pomp, pride and pageantry will be at an end. Stay, the bow is bent, the arrow will hit thee, and then whither wilt thou fall? The place is ready provided and prepared, it wanteth only to be kindled; wilt thou bring fuel lustily to it, that thou be not frozen with cold? Thou wilt sweat very hard: Dost thou suppose thou shalt obtain the light again? No, but hell fire. Smell thy sweet love, guess at it, what is that called? Gehenna; yes, that will be in love with thee eternally.