To quietly absorb enormous achievements without showing them off, and to regard an achievement as service to…

To quietly absorb enormous achievements without showing them off, and to regard an achievement as service to the people, is a quality of the great ones of the past, the righteous predecessors, the seekers on the path and the pious.

To present one’s small deeds as a great achievement and to strain at announcing and proclaiming them with pomp is the habit of petty people.

Whoever bears the mark of true manhood Does not speak of one deed, though he has done a thousand.

One who has no share of manhood at all, If he cannot do even one, will boast loudly of a hundred.

The rooster makes his voice heard in its due time, The hen does not cease her clucking for a single moment.

That is, the true man does a thousand deeds, but does not mention them even once. A person who has no share of manhood cannot manage a single deed, yet proclaims it with lofty words a hundred times. The rooster crows from time to time, its purpose being to wake people for prayer, but the hen clucks without stopping for a single moment. (Commentary on “Hayrat ul-Abror,” p. 566)

Akrom MALIK