So leave aside the multitude, for how often is abundance shunned, while the scant and select are savored;
The briny, swelling seas do not allay one’s thirst, yet you meet true refreshment in the pure, sweet drops.

He also said (1):
Inherited lineage—may its spring run dry—counts for nothing unless it be joined to merit won by striving.
Therefore rely only on the deeds your own hands have wrought, and never imagine that glory is passed down like kinship.
A man attains leadership only by his own self, even though he recite a line of noble, high-born sires.
If a branch bears no fruit, though it stem from a fruitful tree, people still reckon it fit only for firewood.
Glory was wrested by men of lofty souls who courted it themselves, (2) untroubled by pain or hardship.

Among the graceful pieces of his verse is his saying (3):
My heart, struck by her ailing glance, lies ill—if only the one to whom I complain were merciful.
From her face shines a constant, radiant day; from her tresses descends a night of deepest black.
If she draws near, the full moon rises; if she turns away, a supple branch glides; if she casts a look, a gazelle appears.
My eyes delighted in her, and their torment grew long; how often does bliss itself engender pain.
She looked, and with her arrow struck my heart straight on; then she inclined toward me and I was near to swooning.
Alas for me, whether she looks or turns away—the arrows’ strike and their withdrawal are equally painful.
O you who deem my blood lawful and my mercy forbidden—how unjust is such permitting and forbidding.

Ibn Khallikān records many other pieces that we have not cited. Among them is his poem (4)—which he claimed was unprecedented—:
Your judgments, your faces, and your swords, in times of calamity when darkness thickens, are stars;
Some are way-marks of guidance and shining lamps that disperse the gloom, while the rest are meteors that pelt.

It is related (5) that he was born in the year 221 AH, and that he died in this very year—[others say, in the one that followed] (6)—and yet another report places his death in 276 AH.