“Whoever imagines he can escape people’s criticism and fault-finding is out of his mind.”

Ibn Hazm puts this straight after what he calls a great door of reason and peace of mind: to stop caring what people say, and to care instead about what the Creator says. He then argues that a sensible person should welcome people’s blame more than their praise: praise, if true, breeds conceit, and if false, makes him happy with a lie; blame, if true, may help him drop the fault, and if false, and he bears it patiently, earns him the reward of forbearance.