He went on: al-Fuḍayl fainted; when he regained his senses he pushed the money back and would not accept it.

Ibn al-Mubārak also said:

I put my soul to the test and found for it,
after fear of God, nothing like courtesy.

In every circumstance, though it may dislike it,
nothing is better than holding its tongue from lies

or from backbiting people—for their backbiting
has been forbidden by the Majestic One in the Scriptures.

I told my soul, both willingly and against its will:
Forbearance and knowledge are the adornment of the noble.

If, O soul, your words were made of silver,
then silence, surely, is made of gold.

Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Sarrāj said: Yaʿqūb ibn Muḥammad recited to me these lines from Ibn al-Mubārak:

Did you come down with permission, O grey hairs?
What pleasant life is left now that you have arrived?

Grey hair is sermon enough, yet I still long for life
though death is near.

How often I call out to youth once it has parted from me,
but it turns away and gives no answer.

And from him:

O fault-finder of poverty, will you not desist?
The faults of wealth are greater, if you would but reflect.

Among the honors and merits of poverty over wealth—
if only your insight were sound—is this:

you disobey God to gain riches,
whereas you would never disobey Him to become poor.

Ḥibbān ibn Mūsā said: I heard Ibn al-Mubārak recite:

How can a Muslim rest, how can he find relief
while Muslim women languish with the rapacious foe—

women who slap their faces with piercing cries
and call upon their Prophet Muḥammad—

who, when they fear disgrace, cry out in desperation,
“If only we had never been born!”

They can do nothing, they have no resource
save to shield themselves from a brother with their hands.