The Arabian Nights

A loss that can be repaired by money is not of such very great importance.

WHOEVER TALKS ABOUT WHAT DOES NOT CONCERN HIM, OFTEN HEARS WHAT DOES NOT PLEASE HIM!

My story is of such marvel that if it were written with a needle on the corner of an eye, it would yet serve as a lesson to those who seek wisdom.

A library of books is the fairest garden in the world, and to walk there is an ecstasy.

We live in biological time, and we have beginnings, middles, and ends.

A truth once seen by a single mind ends up by imposing itself on the totality of human consciousness.

It is amazing what women in love will do

No hables nunca de lo que no te importe, si no, oirás cosas que no te gusten.

He also sware himself by a binding oath that whatever wife he married he would abate her maidenhead at night and slay her next morning to make sure of his honour;

¡Ya no te temo, corazón mío; puedes latir hasta romperte dentro de mi pecho! ¡Mis ojos ya no pueden enternecerse, ni en mi alma puede tener asiento la piedad!

A funny thing happened on the way to my potential

Now "The Arabian Nights," some of which, but not nearly all, are given in this volume, are only fairy tales of the East. The people of Asia, Arabia, and Persia told them in their own way, not for children, but for grown-up people. There were no novels then, nor any printed books, of course; but there were people whose profession it was to amuse men and women by telling tales. They dressed the fairy stories up, and made the characters good Mahommedans, living in Bagdad or India. The events were often supposed to happen in the reign of the great Caliph, or ruler of the Faithful, Haroun al Raschid, who lived in Bagdad in 786-808 A.D. The vizir who accompanies the Caliph was also a real person of the great family of the Barmecides. He was put to death by the Caliph in a very cruel way, nobody ever knew why. The stories must have been told in their present shape a good long while after the Caliph died, when nobody knew very exactly what had really happened. At last some storyteller thought of writing down the tales, and fixing them into a kind of framework, as if they had all been narrated to a cruel Sultan by his wife. Probably the tales were written down about the time when Edward I. was fighting Robert Bruce. But changes were made in them at different times, and a great deal that is very dull and stupid was put in, and plenty of verses. Neither the verses nor the dull pieces are given in this book.

doubtless imagine that I have acquired all the wealth and luxury that you see me enjoy without difficulty or danger, but this is far indeed from being the case. I have only reached this happy state after having for years suffered every possible kind of toil and danger.

The day of death is better than the day of birth, a live dog is better than a dead lion, and the grave is better than poverty.

All who looked on her bepissed their bag-trousers, for the excess of her beauty and loveliness.

In this world there is none thou mayst count upon * To befriend thy case in the nick of need: So live for thyself nursing hope of none * Such counsel I give thee: enow, take heed!

Consider, Mighty Creator of all things, the differences between Sindbad's life and mine. Every day I suffer a thousand hardships and misfortunes, and have hard work to get even enough bad barley bread to keep myself and my family alive, while the lucky Sindbad spends money right and left and lives upon the fat of the land! What has he done that you should give him this pleasant life— what have I done to deserve so hard a fate?

One night when we were sleeping they threw my wife and myself into the sea. My wife, however, was a fairy, and so she did not let me drown, but transported me to an island.

in presence, he summoned the Wazir Dandan, and the Emirs

seems wearisome to us. In this book the stories are shortened here and there, and omissions are made of pieces only suitable for Arabs and old gentlemen. The translations are by the writers of the tales in the Fairy Books, and the pictures are by Mr. Ford. I can remember reading "The Arabian Nights" when I was six years old, in dirty yellow old volumes of small type with no pictures, and I hope children who read them with Mr. Ford's pictures will be as happy as I was then in the company of Aladdin and Sindbad the Sailor. The Arabian Nights In the chronicles of the ancient dynasty of the Sassanidae, who reigned for about four hundred years, from Persia to the borders of China, beyond the great river Ganges itself,

Now her hair is like the nights of disunion and separation and her face like the days of union and delectation; She hath a nose like the edge of the burnished blade and cheeks like purple wine or anemones blood-red: her lips as coral and carnelian shine and the water of her mouth is sweeter than old wine; its taste would quench Hell's fiery pain. Her tongue is moved by wit of high degree and ready repartee: her breast is a seduction to all that see it (glory be to Him who fashioned it and finished it!); and joined thereto are two upper arms smooth and rounded; She hath breasts like two globes of ivory, from whose brightness the moons borrow light, and a stomach with little waves as it were a figured cloth of the finest Egyptian linen made by the Copts, with creases like folded scrolls, ending in a waist slender past all power of imagination; based upon back parts like a hillock of blown sand, that force her to sit when she would fief stand, and awaken her, when she fain would sleep, And those back parts are upborne by thighs smooth and round and by a calf like a column of pearl, and all this reposeth upon two feet, narrow, slender and pointed like spear-blades, the handiwork of the Protector and Requiter, I wonder how, of their littleness, they can sustain what is above them.

The stories in the Fairy Books have generally been such as old women in country places tell to their grandchildren

if lies can save a man once, truth can save him twice.

Se un giorno diventassi ricca al punto di non aver niente da desiderare, se un giorno possedessi il mondo e l'autorità dei Cesari, sappi che per me niente di tutto ciò peserà più dell'ala di un moscerino, se i miei occhi non avranno la tua persona da guardare!

Rosse sono diventate le mie lacrime, e il mio vino è giunto a maturazione; i miei occhi si dissetano con una bevanda che assomiglia a quella della coppa. E io mi domando: son state le mie palpebre a lasciar scorrere vino, oppure è la coppa in cui bevo a contener le mie lacrime?

Muschio, il suo respiro; rose, la sua guancia; perle, i suoi denti, e una bevanda che inebria, l'acqua della sua bocca. La vita, quella di un ramoscello; le natiche, dune di sabbia inarcate; tenebra i capelli e il volto come un disco lunare luminoso.

she had an elegant belly and a navel that could contain an ounce of unguent.

one is free of envy’ and ‘Injustice lurks in the soul; strength shows it and weakness hides it.

Glory be to Him who changes others and remains Himself unchanged!

Psychology claims that when you can't sleep at night, you are actually awake in someone's dream.

If you need a hug, give it to someone else.

the more one has, the more one wants.

Only in utter solitude can man be safe from the doings of this vile world! By Allah, life is naught but one great wrong.

I took in anything that was new and strange,

Whoso meddles in affairs that are no business of his, will hear truths that will not please him.

Close thine eyes, and while thou sleepest Heaven will change thy fortune from evil to good.

much is gained by patience,

A company of women without men is, however, as dull as a company of men without women.

eager to see such a wonderful thing,

his eldest daughter, who was his delight and pride, Scheherazade said to him, "Father, I have a favour to ask of you. Will you grant it to me?" "I can refuse you nothing," replied he, "that is just and reasonable." "Then listen," said Scheherazade. "I am determined to stop this barbarous practice of the Sultan's, and to deliver the girls and mothers from the awful fate that hangs over them." "It would be an excellent thing to do," returned the grand-vizir,

Moreover, as I was still in the prime of life, it pleased me better to be up and doing.

Unfortunate king,” said the Sultan, “I will do what I can to avenge you.

accompanies the Caliph was also a real person of the great family of the Barmecides. He was put to

there are many out-of-the-way things it is as well to know, but one should never boast of them.