He also said:

"Whoever is able to speak with excellence is surely able to keep silent with excellence; but not everyone who keeps silent with excellence is able to speak with excellence."⦗1⦘

Among his poetry, in which he consoled himself over the death of a friend, are the lines⦗2⦘:
(from the ṭawīl metre)
“What lightens my grief for Sharāhīl is the thought
 that whenever I wish, I can meet a man whose companion has died.”

Another of his poems reads:
(from the ṭawīl metre)
“It is of my nature never to abandon a companion;
 even if he wearies of me, I still pray that he be rightly guided.
And if he remains loyal in affection, I remain as loyal,
 not like another who observes neither obligation nor pact.”

One night Sulaymān heard singing in his military camp. He kept searching until those responsible were brought before him. Sulaymān said:

“The stallion neighs and the mare is ready for him; the camel bellows and the she-camel goes into heat; the buck goat bleats and the she-goat lifts her tail; and when a man sings, a woman longs for him.”

He then ordered that they be castrated. It is said that ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz protested, “O Commander of the Believers, that is mutilation,” so Sulaymān spared them. Another report states that he did castrate one of them, then inquired about the birthplace of this kind of singing. When told it was Medina, he wrote to his governor there—Abū Bakr ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr ibn Ḥazm—commanding him to castrate the effeminate singers in his jurisdiction.⦗3⦘

Al-Shāfiʿī related: A Bedouin entered upon Sulaymān, who invited him to eat falūdhaj (a honeyed pudding) and told him, “Eating it increases one’s brain power.” The Bedouin replied, “If that were true, the head of the Commander of the Believers ought to be as large as a mule’s!”⦗4⦘

They also recount Sulaymān’s voracious appetite, citing remarkable incidents. On one occasion he breakfasted on forty roasted chickens, eighty-four kidneys with their fat, and eighty jurdaq loaves; after that he still took his place, as usual, at the public banquet.⦗5⦘

Another day he entered one of his orchards, having ordered the caretaker to pick its fruit. He went in with his companions; they ate until they were full, while he continued to consume great quantities of fruit. Then he called for a roasted sheep and ate it, returned to the fruit, was brought two more chickens and ate them, then again turned to the fruit. After that he was served a large vessel—big enough for a man to sit in—filled with sawīq (roasted barley flour) mixed with ghee and sugar, and he ate it all. He then proceeded to the palace, where the banquet was laid out, and nothing of his usual portion was missing. It is reported that a fever struck him after this meal and led to his death.⦗6⦘