praise is a taste and you may not taste it. thanks are provisions and you may be deprived of them. what is lost of peoples kindness is more. and preservation has been lost with the death of its people. dont you see that when poetry became stagnant it silenced its people? and when deficiency entered everything poetry took its share from it? and when the state changed among the persians and the persians do not guard lineages nor do they guard positions. because whoever is in the countryside and sufficiency and is immersed in the intoxication of wealth his forgetfulness increases and his thoughts decrease. and whoever is in need his ambition is stirred and his searching increases. the defect of wealth is that it bequeaths the town and the virtue of poverty is that it stimulates thought.
على أن الثناء طعم ٢ ولعلك ألا تطعمه، والحمد أرزاق ولعلك أن تحرمه، وما يضيع من إحسان الناس أكثر. وعلى أن الحفظ ٣ قد ذهب بموت أهله ألا ترى أن الشعر لما كسد ٤ أفحم أهله؟ ولما دخل النقص على كل شيء أخذ الشعر منه بنصيبه؟ ولما تحولت الدولة في العجم ٥ ، والعجم لا تحوط الأنساب، ولا تتحفظ المقامات ٦ . لأن من كان في الريف والكفاية، وكان مغمورا بسكر الغنى، كثر نسيانه وقلت خواطره ٧ ، ومن احتاج تحركت همته وكثر تنقيره. وعيب الغنى أنه يورث البلدة، وفضيلة الفقر أنه يبعث الفكر.