65 — Hāshim ibn al-Walīd, Abū Tālib al-Harawī, narrated to me—I asked him, and he said: I heard Abū Bakr ibn Ayyāsh (may Allah have mercy on him) say:

“Four kings once gathered and all took aim at the same point, each with a single maxim: the king of India, the king of China, Khosrow, and Caesar. One of them said, ‘I regret what I have said, but I do not regret what I have left unsaid.’ Another said, ‘Once I utter a word, it controls me and I do not control it; but if I do not utter it, I control it and it does not control me.’ The third said, ‘I marvel at one who speaks: if his word comes back against him, it harms him; and if it does not, it brings him no benefit.’ The fourth said, ‘I am better able to hold back what I have not said than to take back what I have said.’”