Friday, December 27, 2024

Still Ignorant Remain

Saʿdī Shīrāzī, The Gulistān; Or, Rose Garden, tr. Edward B. Eastwick (London: 1880, 2nd edt.), ch. VIII., 206:

        How much soe’er thou learn’st, ’tis all vain;
        Who practise not, still ignorant remain.
        A quadruped, with volumes laden, is
        No whit the wiser or more sage for this:
        How can the witless animal discern,
        If books be piled on it? or wood to burn?

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