(8) Fools dwelling in darkness, wise in their own conceit, and puffed up with vain knowledge, go round and round staggering to and fro, like blind men led by the blind.

(207) He who walks in the company of fools suffers a long way; company with fools, as with an enemy, is always painful; company with the wise is pleasure, like meeting with kinsfolk.

(44) "But I look round about me in all the world, and can find out nothing; all is sick, lame and wounded: moreover, blind, deaf and dumb "].

(28) When the learned man drives away vanity by earnestness, he, the wise, climbing the terraced heights of wisdom, looks down upon the fools, serene he looks upon the toiling crowd, as one that stands on a mountain looks down upon them that stand upon the plain.

(66) Fools of little understanding have themselves for their greatest enemies, for they do evil deeds which must bear bitter fruits.

(26) Fools follow after vanity, men of evil wisdom. The wise man keeps earnestness as his best jewel.

(99) Woe to you, ye fools, for through your folly shall ye perish: and ye transgress against the wise, and so good hap shall not be your portion.

(1) Whither stumble ye, sots, who have sopped up the wine of ignorance and can so far not carry it that ye already even spew it forth? Stay ye, be sober, gaze upwards with the [true] eyes of the heart! And if ye cannot all, yet ye at least who can! For that the ill of ignorance doth pour o`er all the earth and overwhelm the soul that's battened down within the body, preventing it from fetching port within Salvation's harbors.

(13) For a foolish man usually puts on folly like a robe, and like a garment of sorrow, he puts on shame. And he crowns himself with ignorance, and takes his seat upon a throne of nescience. For while he is without reason, he leads only himself astray, for he is guided by ignorance. And he goes the ways of the desire of every passion. He swims in the desires of life and has sunk. To be sure, he thinks that he finds profit when he does all the things which are without profit. The wretched man who goes through all these things will die, because he does not have the mind, the helmsman. But he is like a ship which the wind tosses to and fro, and like a loose horse which has no rider. For this (man) needed the rider, which is reason. For the wretched one went astray because he did not want advice. He was thrown to and fro by these three misfortunes: he acquired death as a father, ignorance as a mother, and evil counsels - he acquired them as friends and brothers. Therefore, foolish one, you should mourn for yourself.

(43) And understand by this that he who is in darkness will not be able to see anything unless he receives the light and recovers (his) sight by means of it. Examine yourself (to see) whether you wholly have the light, so that, if you ask about these things, you may understand how you will escape. For many are seeking in darkness, and they grope about, wishing to understand, since there is no light for them.

(136) A fool does not know when he commits his evil deeds: but the wicked man burns by his own deeds, as if burnt by fire.

(52) Therefore take heed what thou dost, and consider what thou art; thou judgest others, and art blind thyself.

(120) Therefore no man ought to think that the devil is able to tear the works of the light out of his [man's] heart, for he can neither see nor comprehend them: and though he rageth and raveth in the outermost birth in the flesh, as in his castle of robbery or fort of prey, do not despair; only take heed that thou thyself bring not the works of wrath into the light of thy heart. Then thy soul will be safe enough from the deaf and dumb devil, who is blind in the light

(11) He wanders into the boundless desert, Sometimes halting and despairing, sometimes running. He has no lamp wherewith to light himself on his way, He lacks wisdom, so as to boast of being alive, And also half wisdom, so as to assume to be dead? That half wise one became as one utterly dead If you lack perfect wisdom, make yourself as dead Under the shadow of the wise, whose words give life. The fool is neither alive so as to companion with 'Isa,

(63) The fool who knows his foolishness, is wise at least so far. But a fool who thinks himself wise, he is called a fool indeed.

(39) Hearken: If it does not become me to ask, then it does not become thee to judge me. Dost thou boast in the knowledge of the light, and art a leader of the blind, and yet art blind thyself? How wilt thou shew the way to the blind? In your blindness must you not both fall? But you will say, We are not blind; for we well see the way of the light. Why then do you contend or dispute about the way of the light, if none can see it rightly?

(23) My feeble wit conjured up vain imaginations." How can an infant on the road know the thoughts of men? How far its fancies are removed from true knowledge! The thoughts of infants run on the nurse and milk, Or on raisins or nuts, or on crying and wailing. The blind imitator is like a feeble infant, His preoccupation with obscure arguments and proofs His stock of lore, which is the salve of his eyes, Ah! man of imitation, come out of Bokhara! Then you will, behold another Bokhara within you, Though a footman may be swift of foot on land,

(15) Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light.

(171) Come, look at this glittering world, like unto a royal chariot; the foolish are immersed in it, but the wise do not touch it.

(518) Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind’s eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the den. That, he said, is a very just distinction. But then, if I am right, certain professors of education must be wrong when they say that they can put a knowledge into the soul which was not there before, like sight into blind eyes. They undoubtedly say this, he replied. Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning exists in the soul already; and that just as the eye was unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole body, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the world of becoming into that of being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of being, and of the brightest and best of being, or