“When you go among the ignorant full of pride, Among false sages play the model ass. So abundant are their asinine features That whoever is no ass is thought an unbeliever”;

“I adjure you, heaven, for God’s sake, give an answer: You turn, but is there any meaning in it or not?”;

“Movement can replace many medicines, but no medicine in the world can replace movement”;

“A physician must have the eye of a falcon, the hands of a maiden, the wisdom of a serpent and the heart of a lion”;

“A person who takes physical exercise in moderation and at the right time needs no treatment aimed at curing disease”;

“Do not let your wealth deceive you, for everything you keep will belong to others. If you are able to spend it, it will become yours”;

“They gained wealth and lost their intellect. I wonder whether what they found was worth as much as what they lost”;

“When drawing up a code of laws, a ruler must take account of the moral character of his people and of those age-old traditions that prompt them to justice. For justice is the finest ornament of human deeds”;

“To spare yourself remorse in your final hour, Labour on earth and strive to leave only a good trace behind”.

(Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abdallah ibn Sina, known in the West as Avicenna (980–1037), was a Central Asian polymath, philosopher and physician, poet, astronomer, music theorist, physicist, mathematician, chemist, ethicist, faqih and writer. He was the most famous and influential philosopher-scientist of the medieval Islamic world. Ibn Sina served as court physician to the Samanid emirs and the Daylamite sultans, and for a time was vizier in Hamadan. In all he wrote more than 450 works across 29 fields of science, of which only 274 have survived. He wrote in Persian and Arabic. Ibn Sina was born in the small village of Afshana near Bukhara, the capital of the Samanid Empire. He was buried in Hamadan; eight months later his remains were taken to Isfahan and reburied in the emir’s mausoleum.)