Smuggling
Nasreddin Hodja used to take his donkey across a frontier every day, with the panniers loaded with straw. Since he admitted to being a smuggler when he trudged home every night, the frontier guards searched him again and again. They searched his person, sifted the straw, steeped it in water, even burned it from time to time. Meanwhile he was visibly more and more prosperous.
Then he retired and went to live in another country. Here one of the customs officers met him, years later.
-You can tell me now, Hodja, he said. Whatever was it that you were smuggling, when we could never catch you out?
- Donkeys, said Hodja. Donkeys and just only donkeys.

Cheap Donkeys
Every market day Hodja would take a donkey there and and sell it very cheap. He was always selling his donkeys far below any of the prices of his competitors.
One day a rich donkey merchant said to him:
- I don't know how you can afford to sell your donkeys so cheaply. I have my servants steal the hay from the farmers and I also force my servants to keep the donkeys without paying them. And yet your prices are still lower than mine!
- Well, that's understandable, replied Hodja. You steal food and labour, I steal donkeys!

Fehmi Pasha's servant
Hodja was unemployed and poor but somehow he got little money to eat beans and pilaf at a cheap restaurant. He ate and examined walking people outside with the corner of the eye. He noticed a long, handsome swashbuckler (bully man) behind crowd. The Man was well dressed from head to foot, with velvet turban, silver embroidered vest, silk shirt, satin baggy-trousers and golden scimitar (short curved sword). Hodja pointed the man and asked restaurant keeper,
- Who is that man over there!
- He is Fehmi Pasha's servant, answered restaurant keeper.
Hodja sighed from far away, looked at the sky and said:
- Oh, my Good Lord! Look at that Fehmi Pasha's servant and look at your own servant, here.

Everybody has right
Hodja was once a judge. One day a man came to his house to complain about his neighbor. Hodja listened carefully and then said to him,
- My good man, you are right.
The man went away happily. In a little while the first man's neighbor came to see Hodja. He complained about the first man. Hodja listened carefully to him, too, and then said,
- My good man, you are right.
Hodja's wife had been listening to all this, and when the second man left, she turned to Hodja and said,
- Hodja, you told both men right. That's impossible. They both can't be right.
Hodja listened carefully to his wife and then said to her,
- My dear, you are right, too.

Price of a hit on the neck
Nasreddin Hodja had visited a town for some personal business. Hodja was walking quietly along the road when somebody gave him a violent blow on the back of the neck. He looked behind him, and saw a young man whom he had never seen before.
- How dare you hit me like that! shouted Hodja.
- Sorry, in appearance from behind, you resemble someone I hate.said the young man.
He thought Hodja was making a lot of noise about nothing.
- I dont't think so! replied Hodja with pain on his neck
This insult made Hodja even angrier, of course, and he at once arranged for the young man to be brought before a judge. There was nothing for the young man to do but to appear before the court. Now, the judge who heard the case was a friend of the young man's father, and, although he pretended to be quite fair, he was thinking how he could avoid punishing the young man while at the same time not appearing unjust. Finally the judge said to Hodja:
- I understand your feelings in this matter very well. Would you be satisfied if I let you hit the young man as he hit you?
But Hodja said he would not be. The young man had insulted him and should be properly punished.
- Well, then, said the judge to the young man, I order you to pay ten liras to Hodja.
Ten liras was very little for such a crime, but the young man did not have it with him, so the judge allowed him to go and get it.
Hodja waited for him to return with the money. He waited an hour, he waited two hours, while the judge attended to other business.
When it was nearly time for the court to close, Hodja chose a moment when the judge was especially busy, came up quietly behind him and hit him hard on the back of the neck. Then Hodja said to him:
- I am sorry, but I can't wait any longer, I got lots of business to do. Since the price of a hit on the neck is ten liras you may receive that money instead of me. When the young man comes back, tell him that I have passed my right to the ten liras on to you. You look like familiar with this kind of compensation, don't you?

Teaching a donkey to talk
Tamerlane was looking for someone to teach his donkey to talk. Nobody wanted the job. Finally the wise men of the dunes - Hodja Nasreddin took the position and promised to teach the donkey to talk in 10 years time.
- Are you crazy? his friends asked him.
- Not really, Hodja answered, the money is good the job is not hard and in 10 years a lot might happen: I might die, or Tamerlane might die or surely enough this old donkey might die.

Bitten ear
Two men came before Nasreddin Hodja when he was magistrate. The first man said,
- This man has bitten my ear -- I demand compensation.
The second man said,
- He bit it himself.
Hodja withdrew to his chambers, and spent an hour trying to bite his own ear. He succeeded only in falling over and bruising his forehead. Returning to the courtroom, Hodja pronounced,
- Examine the man whose ear was bitten. If his forehead is bruised, he did it himself and the case is dismissed. If his forehead is not bruised, the other man did it and must pay three silver pieces.

Smell of the food
One day a poor and hungry visitor took a piece of bread from his pocket and hold it over a hot cauldron food at a open restaurant window. The dry bread became softer and he began to eat it but the restaurant keeper stoped him for fee of the food steam. The poor visitor had no money and they decided to go to judge.
Our Hodja was the judge of the town and listened carefully both men. Hodja took some golden coins from his purse and show them to the restaurant keeper.
- Come here, please! said to him.
When he came to receive coins, Hodja jingled the coins in the palm of his hands to the man's ear.
- Now the fee was paid, said Hodja.
- What is that all about? the restaurant keeper wondered and asked.
- Justice! Hodja replied, the sound of money is a fair compensation for the smell of the food.

Costly answers (by Figen)
Nasreddin Hodja opened a booth with a sign above it:
TWO QUESTIONS ON ANY SUBJECT
ANSWERED FOR ONLY 100 LIRAS
A man who had two very urgent questions handed over his money, saying:
- A hundred liras is rather expensive for two questions, isn't it?
- Yes, said Hodja, and the next question, please?

How to keep it going (by Figen)
Nasreddin Hodja used to stand in the street on market-days, to be pointed out as an idiot. No matter how often people offered him a large and a small coin, he always chose the smaller piece.
One day a kindly man said to him:
- Hodja, you should take the bigger coin. Then you will have more money and people will no longer be able to make a laughing stock of you.
- That may be true, said Hodja, but if I always take the larger, people will stop offering me money to prove that I am more idiotic than they are. Then I would have no money at all.

Needs (by Figen)
As Nasreddin Hodja emerged form the mosque after prayers, a beggar sitting on the street solicited alms. The following conversation followed:
- Are you extravagant? asked Hodja.
- Yes Hodja. replied the beggar.
- Do you like sitting around drinking coffee and smoking? asked Hodja.
- Yes. replied the beggar.
- I suppose you like to go to the baths everyday? asked Hodja.
- Yes. replied the beggar.
- ...And maybe amuse yourself, even, by drinking with friends? asked Hodja.
- Yes I like all those things. replied the beggar.
- Tut, tut, said Hodja, and gave him a gold piece.
A few yards farther on. another beggar who had overheard the conversation begged for alms also.
- Are you extravagant? asked Hodja.
- No, Hodja replied second beggar.
- Do you like sitting around drinking coffee and smoking? asked Hodja.
- No. replied second beggar.
- I suppose you like to go to the baths everyday? asked Hodja.
- No. replied second beggar.
- ...And maybe amuse yourself, even, by drinking with friends? asked Hodja.
- No, I want to only live meagrely and to pray. replied second beggar.
Whereupon the Hodja gave him a small copper coin.
- But why, wailed second beggar, do you give me, an economical and pious man, a penny, when you give that extravagant fello a sovereign?
- Ah my friend, replied Hodja, his needs are greater than yours.

Hodja's sermon
One day Nasreddin Hodja came to the mosque unprepared for his sermon. He asked the audience if they understood what he was going to tell them. When they all replied no, he told them if they did not understand than there was no point in telling them, and he sat down.
The following week when he asked the same question they all replied yes. Since they knew what he was going to say, he told them there was no point in saying it and again he sat down.
By the third week half of the audience said yes and the other half no, to which Hodja bowed politely and asked those who knew to tell those who did not.

Hodja and the path (by Russell Nelson | Russell Nelson's Home Page)
Nasreddin Hodja was poor in those days, so he went looking for a job. The local mosque needed a tiled path, so he offered to build one for a gold coin. The mullah accepted his offer. After he had built the path, the mullah gave him a silver coin. Hodja accepted the coin grudgingly. In two months, the mullah came back to him, saying
- Oh Hodja, your path is so beautiful we want another one. We will pay you another gold coin. Hodja said
-Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.