* When this world favours anybody it lends him qualification, attributes and surpassing merits of others and When it turns its face away from him it snatches away even his own excllences and fame.

* If you get an opportunity and power over your enemy then, in thankfulness to God for this, Forgive him.

* Treat people in such a way and Live amongst them in such a manner that if you die they weep over you and if you are alive they crave for your company.

* Our affairs are hinged to the destiny decreed by the lord; even our best though tout programmes may lead us to death and destruction.

* Failures are often result of timidity and fear; Disappointments are results of uncalled modesty;   Hours of leisure pass away like Summer-clouds, therefore do not waste opportunity of doing good.

* When few blessings come in your way do not drive them away through thanklessness.

* He is very unfortunate who cannot in his Lifetime gain a  Few Sincere Friends and sympathisers and more unfortunate is the one who gained them and then lost them.

* One who develops the traits of greediness and avarice invites degradation; One who keeps on advertising his poverty and ill-Luck will always be humiliated; One who has no control over his tongue will often have to face embarrassment and discomfort.

* The wise aims at perfection, the foolish aim at wealth.

* Silence will create respect and dignity;  Justice and Fair play will bring more friends; Benevolence and Charity will enhance prestige and position, Courtesy will draw benevolence; Services of Mankind will secure Leadership; Good Words will overcome powerful Enemies.

* Death is never very far.

* A Friend cannot be considered as a Friend unless he is tested on three occasions; In time of need, Behind your back and After your death.

* Be Generous but not Extravagant, be Frugal but not Miserly.

* A Fool's mind is at the mercy of his tongue and a Wise Man's tongue is under control of his mind.

* Endurance is of two kinds; When you endure unpleasant things coming to you and When you bear refusal of things pleasing you.

* I want to teach you five such things which deserve your greatest anxiety to acquire:
1. Have hope in God and none else.
2. Be afraid of nothing but sin.
3. If you do not know a thing never feel ashamed to admit ignorance.
4. If you do not know a thing never hesitate or feel ashamed to learn it.
5. Acquire patience and endurance, because their relation with true faith is that of a head to a body;  A body is of no use without a head, similarly true faith can be of no use without attributes of resignation, endurance and patience.

* Only he can Forgive who has power to Punish.

* There are many educated people who have ruined their future on account of their ignorance of religion.  Their Knowledge did not prove of any avail to them.

* Wealth converts every Foreign Country into your Native place and poverty turns your native place into a Strange Land.

* Overlook and forgive weakness of generous people, because if they fall down Hand of God lifts them.

* Often your utterances and expressions of your face leak out the Secrets of your hidden thoughts.

* Surrender and Acceptance to the will of God are the best companions; Wisdom is the noblest heritage; Theoretical and practical knowledge are best marks of distinction; Deep thinking will present the clearest picture of every problem.

* A wise man's mind is the safest custody of secrets; An open and pleasant countenance gets more friends;  Patience and Forbearance will Hide and Cover many defects.

* Be very cautious of cold in the beginning of winter and welcome it at the close of the season. Because cold season behaves with your bodies exactly as it does with trees; In the early season its severity makes them shrivel and shed their leaves and at the end it helps them to revive and rejuvenate.

* One who does not realize his own value is condemned to utter failure.

* To fix even a single unlawfully acquired stone in a house is to guarantee to its destruction.

* Bear sorrow and calamities patiently otherwise you will never be Happy.

* People, often hate those thing which they do not know or cannot understand.

* Trains yourself in good behaviour with regard to what you dislike in others.

* Ask your heart about Friendship, for surely it is a witness that cannot be bribed.

* Cut away evil from the chest of others by snatching it away from your own chest.

* Stubbornness destroys (good) advise.

* Greed is a lasting slavery.

* There is no advantage in keeping quiet about an issue of wisdom just as there is no good in speaking out an unintelligent thing.

* Whoever turned away from right got ruined.

* Woe to the faces who are seen only on foul occasions.

* Every container gets narrower with what is placed in it except knowledge which expands instead.

* The greedy is in the shackles of disgrace.

* Belief means appreciation with heart, acknowledgment with tongue and action with limbs.

* One ill gotten piece of stone in a house is a guarantee for its ruin.

* The day of the oppressed over the oppressor would be severer than the day of the oppressor over the oppressed.

I am amazed at the heart of man: It possesses the substance of wisdom as well as the opposites contrary to it ... for if hope arises in it, it is brought low by covetousness: and if covetousness is aroused in it, greed destroys it. If despair possesses it, self piety kills it: and if it is seized by anger, this is intensified by rage. If it is blessed with contentment, then it forgets to be careful; and if it is filled with fear, then it becomes pre-occupied with being cautious. If it feels secure , then it is overcome by vain hopes; and if it is given wealth, then its independence makes it extra-vagant. If want strikes it, then it is smitten by anxiety. If it is weakened by hunger, then it gives way to exhaustion; and if it goes to far in satisfying its appetites, then its inner becomes clogged up. So all its shortcomings are harmful to it, and all its excesses corrupt it.

There are four things that make the heart die: wrong action followed by wrong action, playing around with foolish people, spending a lot of time with women, and sitting with the dead. Then they asked Imam Ali: ' And who are the dead, O Commander of the believers? ' He replied: ' Every slave who follows his desires. '

Surely want is a trial, and having sickness of the body is more difficult to bear than indigence, and having a sickness of the heart is more difficult to bear than having a sickness of the body. Surely being very wealthy is a blessing, and having a healthy body is better than being very wealthy, and having awe of Allah in your heart is better than having a healthy body.

Surely hearts have desires, and they turn towards, and they turn away ... so approach them by means of what they desire and what they turn towards, for surely if the heart is forced to do some thing against its will, it goes blind.

Do not share the knowledge with which you have been blessed with everyone in general, as you do with some people in particular; and know that there are some men in whom Allah, may He he glorified, has placed hidden secrets, which they are forbidden to reveal. Remember the reply of the righteous slave to Moses when he said to him: 'May I follow you so that you can teach me what you know about what is right?' He replied: 'Surely you will not be able to be patient with me. How can you be patient about something which you do not understand?'.

When Imam Ali was asked about Faith in Religion, he replied that the structure of faith is supported by four pillars endurance, conviction, justice and jihad.

Endurance is composed of four attributes: eagerness, fear, piety and anticipation (of death). So whoever is eager for Paradise will ignore temptations; whoever fears the fire of Hell will abstain from sins; whoever practises piety will easily bear the difficulties of life and whoever anticipates death will hasten towards good deeds.

Conviction has also four aspects to guard oneself against infatuations of sin; to search for explanation of truth through knowledge; to gain lessons from instructive things and to follow the precedent of the past people, Because whoever wants to guard himself against vices and sins will have to search for the true causes of infatuation and the true ways of combating them out and to find those true ways one has to search them with the help of knowledge, whoever gets fully acquainted with various branches of knowledge will take lessons from life and whoever tries to take lessons from life is actually engaged in the study of the causes of rise and fall of previous civilizations.

Justice also has four aspects depth of understanding, profoundeness of knowledge, fairness of judgement and dearness of mind; because whoever tries his best to under- stand a problem will have to study it, whoever has the practice of studying the subject he is to deal with, will develop a clear mind and will always come to correct decisions, whoever tries to achieve all this will have to develop ample patience and forbearance and whoever has done this has done justice to the cause of religion and has led a life of good repute and fame.

Jihad is divided into four branches: to persuade people to be obedient to Allah; to prohibit them from sin and vice; to struggle (in the cause of Allah) sincerely and firmly on all occasions and to detest the vicious. Whoever persuades people to obey the orders of Allah provides strength to the believers; whoever dissuades them from vices and sins humiliates the unbelievers; whoever struggles on all occasions discharges all his obligations and whoever detests the vicious only for the sake of Allah, then Allah will take revenge on his enemies and will be pleased with Him on the Day of Judgement.

Have you fully realised what Islam is ? It is indeed a religion founded on truth. It is such a fountain-head of learning that several streams of wisdom and knowledge flow from it. It is such a lamp that several lamps will be lit from it. It is a lofty beacon of light Illuminating the path of Allah. It is such a set of principles and beliefs that will fully satisfy every seeker of truth and reality Know you all that Allah has made Islam, the most sublime path for the attainment of his supreme pleasure and the highest standard of his worship and obedience. He has favoured it with noble precepts, exalted principles, undoubtable arguments, unchallengeable supremecy and undeniable wisdom. It is up to you to maintain the eminence and dignity granted to it by the Lord, to follow it sincerely, to do justice to its articles of faith and belief, to obey implicitly its tenets and orders and to give it the proper place in your lives".

* Knowledge and Acting on it

O' you who carry knowledge around with you; are you only carrying it around with you ? For surely knowledge belongs to who ever knows and then acts accordingly, so that his action corresponds to his knowledge. There will be a people who will carry knowledge around with them, but it will not pass beyond their shoulders. Their inner most thoughts will contradict what they display in public, and their actions will contradict what they know.

* The purity and nobility of knowledge

When a dead person is placed in his grave, four kinds of fire will cover him, but then the prayer will come and put one of them out, and the fast will come and put another one of them out, and then charity will come and put another one out, and knowledge will come and put the forth one out, and it will say : ' If I had come sooner, I would a have put all of them out, and given you delight for I am with you now, and you'll not see anything else distressing.

Remember that this world which you covet so ardently and attempt to acquire so earnestly, and which sometimes annoys you and sometimes pleases you so much, is neither your home nor a permanent destination. You have not been created for it, nor invited to it as your resting-place. It shall neither remain with you for ever, nor will you remain in it eternally. If it has enticed you away with its charrns, it has also warned and cautioned you of real dangers lurking in its folds. Take account of the warnings it has given you and do not be seduced or deceived by its allurements. Let these warnings frighten you from being too greedy to possess it. Try to advance towards the place where you are invited for eternal bliss and turn your face away from the vicious world.

* A person's intellect becomes apparent through his dealings, and a man's character is known by the way he exercises authority.

* The intellect is a king and characteristics are its subjects, so if it is weak in governing them, disorder takes place.

* The intellect is better than desire, for the intellect makes you a king over your destiny, and desire makes you a slave of your destiny.

* The intellect is a natural disposition which learns from experience.

* The intellect is what arrives at what is correct through reasoning, and recognizes what has not yet happened through what has already taken place.

* Use your intellect to understand something when you hear about it-the intellect that examines, that is, and not just the intellect that repeats what it hears, for surely there are many who repeat the knowledge that they hear, and there are few who examine it.

* The one who has an intellect longs to be like the righteous people so that he can be of one of them, and he loves them so that he can be united with them in his love, even if he falls short in emulating their actions.

* The one who has an intellect does not openly display it except in one of two situations: when he is furthest away from seeking something in the world, and when he is furthest away from abandoning it.

* Surely hated adversity has final objectives in which it will inevitably end, so the one who has an intellect should try to sleep over it until this happens, for surely any attempt to stop it before it has come to an end will only intensify that hated diversity even more.

* The first opinion of the person of intellect is the last opinion of an ignorant person.

* The one who has an intellect finds harshness of life amongst persons of intellect more agreeable than a life of ease amongst the foolish.