For your fathers carried you on their shoulders carefully as a burden on them, and they raised you.

Listen to the advice of Gorkut Ata: “Gain your reputation while your father is alive, and get ahead while you have your horse.”

Your father is a base for you in society. People measure your value first by looking at your father. Don’t let your father be ashamed among others because of you.

You are the heir of your father. It is not merely wealth that you inherit. Your father’s reputation or dishonour is left to you, too. Your father’s heritage is divided equally among his children, but his authority transfers to you and your brothers undivided.

May you never forget who your father is. Let others say of you, “Better than his father,” and be proud if they say so. Be ashamed if they say of you, “He is not up to his father.”

Don’t you ever forget that you were created out of one drop.

If it weren’t for your father, you wouldn’t exist. You would not have been born if not for him. It is your father’s existence that made your existence in the world of beings possible. Your father is your previous self.

Disregarding your father means disregarding yourself. Being disrespectful to your father is being disrespectful to yourself. The more favours you do your father, the more you do the same for yourself.

I spend much time thinking about the relations between fathers and their sons. A Türkmen saying goes: “If your father is a dog, then feed yourself at a trough.”