When he had slain him and saw him lying prostrate before him, he said:

"Three traits have ringed you round
and brought upon you the fated end:
Your defiance, your withholding of your right hand from mine,
and your marshaling of the mighty masses."

Among his other verses are these:

"A man may hope to live on still—
yet a long life can do him harm;
His cheerfulness grows threadbare,
and after sweet living its bitterness remains;
The passing days betray him
until he finds nothing that gladdens him.
How many will gloat if I should perish,
and how many will say, ‘By Allah, well done!’ (1)
"

They said:
In the early part of the day al-Manṣūr would devote himself to enjoining right and forbidding wrong, to appointments and dismissals, and to the affairs of the populace. When he had performed the ẓuhr prayer he would return to his residence and rest until ʿaṣr; after praying ʿaṣr he would sit with his household and look into their private concerns. When he had prayed ʿishāʾ he would read the books and letters arriving from the provinces and would converse with those who kept him company until a third of the night had passed. He would then go to his family, sleep in his bed until the final third, rise for ablution and prayer until daybreak, then go out and lead the people in prayer, after which he would sit in his audience hall.

He once appointed a governor over a certain district, but news reached him that the man had taken up hunting and had equipped dogs and hawks for it. He wrote to him:

"May your mother and your clan be bereaved of you—woe to you! We employed you for the affairs of the Muslims, not for the beasts of the wilderness. Hand over the office you hold on our behalf to So-and-so, and return to your family, blamed and banished."

On another day a Kharijite who had routed al-Manṣūr’s armies more than once was brought before him. When the man stood in his presence, al-Manṣūr said, "Woe to you, son of a vile woman! A man like you defeats armies!" The Kharijite retorted, "Woe to you! Shame on you! Yesterday between you and me were sword and slaughter, and today you hurl insults and abuse? What keeps me from answering you back when I have despaired of life and expect nothing further from it?" Al-Manṣūr felt ashamed, released him, and did not see him again for a whole year.

He said to his son when he invested him with the succession: "My son, season blessing with gratitude, power with clemency, victory with humility, and the winning of hearts with obedience. Do not forget your share of this world, nor your share of Allah’s mercy."

He also said: "My son, the intelligent man is not the one who schemes only once he has fallen into trouble so as to escape it; the intelligent man is the one who schemes against the trouble looming over him so that he never falls into it."

And al-Manṣūr said: "My son, never sit in any gathering unless among its people…"