"Know ye (all), that the life of this world is but play and amusement, pomp and mutual boasting and multiplying, (in rivalry) among yourselves, riches and children. Here is a similitude: How rain and the growth which it brings forth, delight (the hearts of) the tillers; soon it withers; thou wilt see it grow yellow; then it becomes dry and crumbles away. But in the Hereafter is a Penalty severe (for the devotees of wrong). And Forgiveness from God and (His) Good Pleasure (for the devotees of God). And what is the life of this world, but goods and chattels of deception?"
 

(Holy Qur'an (Yusufali) 57:20)

"Who are you to abuse the world, when it has openly declared its mortality and mortality of everything connected with it, when it has given every one of its inhabitants to know that all of them are to face death, when through its ways it has given them all an idea of calamities they have to face here, and through the sight of its temporary and fading pleasures, it has given them glimpses of Eternal Pleasures of the Heaven and suggested them to wish and work for the same. If you study it properly you will find that simply to warn and frighten you of bad results of evil deeds and to persuade you to good action, every night it raises new hopes of peace and prosperity in you and every morning it places more anxieties and new worries in front of you. Those who pass such lives that they are ashamed of and repent for the time so passed abuse this world. But there are people who will praise the world on Day of Judgment, that it reminded them of the hereafter and they took advantage of these reminders, it informed them of the effects of good deeds and they made correct use of the information and it advised them and they benefitted by its advice."
 

(Nahjul Balagha: Sermons, letters and saying of Hazrat Ali (Second American edition, 1981), Sayings of Hazrat Ali 130, p. 287-288)