After this there was much discussion of patience and forbearance. He [Nizam ad-Din Awliya] said: ‘Everyone who bears injury is better than he who can scarcely repress anger, for one must not be bent on retaliation.’ These two lines of poetry came on his blessed tongue:

   May God befriend all those who are my foes,
   May all who hurt me gain increased repose.

After that he added another couplet:

   May all who in my path place thorns from spite
   Lead lives that flower like a thornless rose rose.

Then he remarked: ‘If someone puts a thorn in your path and you put a thorn in his, there are thorns everywhere! And he concluded: ‘It is like this among men, that you are straight with those who are straight with you, and crooked to those who are crooked. But among dervishes, it is like this, that you are straight with those who are straight with you, and with the crooked, you are also straight!’

Amir Hasan Sijzi, Morals for the Heart