Ibn Hazm

“Men sometimes come and question meHow many years my age may be,Seeing my temples silver nowAnd flecks of snow upon my brow.This is the answer that I give"When I count up the life I liveApplying all my reason's power,I make the total just one hour.""And how", my questioner repliesIn accents of amazed surprise,"Mak'st thou this sum, which seems to meBeyond all credibility?""One day", I answer," she I loveAll other earthly things aboveLay in my arms, and like a thoughtHer lips with mine I swiftly sought."And though the years before I dieStretch out interminably, IShall only count my life in truthAs that brief hour of happy youth." -”

“I have a sickness doctors can't cure,Inexorably pulling me to the well of my destruction,Consented to be a sacrifice, killed for her love,Eager, like the drunk gulping wine mixed with poison,Shameless were those my nights,Yet my soul loved them beyond all passion.”

“Do not use your energy except for a cause more noble than yourself. Such a cause cannot be found except in Almighty God Himself: to preach the truth, to defend womanhood, to repel humiliation which your Creator has not imposed upon you, to help the oppressed. Anyone who uses his energy for the sake of the vanities of the world is like someone who exchanges gemstones for gravel. There is no nobility in anyone who lacks faith. The wise man knows that the only fitting price for his soul is a place in Paradise...”