NOTE: 99

[he] does not [care] whether [his] words hurt someone, or whether discord or trouble arises between them; for turmoil is to him an occasion of amusement and diversion. IV. The peacemaker always attends to his own business; his mind and thoughts are on his work. For this reason, whatever enterprise he lays his hand to, he advances and prospers, and he gains repute (*i‘tibār*). But the trouble-maker abandons all his work to neglect; being meddlesome, he wanders here and there in order to become privy to the words and affairs of others. So that whatever word he catches from someone’s mouth, he immediately mixes into it falsehoods and truths from his own side and carries it to another’s ear, so that strife and opposition may arise between two companions, or neighbours, or friends. And although at that moment he attains his evil desires, yet before long, through the agency of peaceful men, they are reconciled; the slander he has committed is revealed, and he himself becomes hateful to both sides, and his own affairs also go to ruin.