In this prose section of Jami's Baharestan, a sage recounts how he distilled his learning: forty books of wisdom brought him no benefit, forty chosen words brought none either, until four words finally gave him what he sought. The passage models the wisdom-literature technique of reducing vast learning to a few memorable ethical precepts. Two of the surviving maxims caution against (1) trusting women as one trusts men — invoking the traditional claim that a woman's intellect and religion are deficient, so she should never be given complete trust — and (2) taking pride in wealth however abundant, since worldly riches pass like a drifting cloud and are ultimately trampled by the turns of fortune.