"To bind one free man with love is better than to release a thousand slaves."

"Enlightenment must come little by little - otherwise it would overwhelm."

"If you forsake a path, it is because you were hoping for conviction from it. You seek conviction, not self-knowledge."

"Until you can understand illogicality, and the meaningfulness of it, shun the Sufis except for limited, precise, self-evident services."

"A great deal of thought is only a substitute for the thoughts that the individual would really find useful at the time."

"It is not 'Have I got a chance?' It is more often: 'Have I seen my chance?"

"Causes: As important a fact as any individual cause on earth is the vital incapacity of the human individual to distinguish between genuine cause and one which is foisted upon him by pressure, environment, propaganda, conditioning.If people had the sense they pretend to have, they would seek this fundamental distinction perceptible.Hardly anyone makes this effort. This is partly because it is an invisible but powerful part of their culture to teach that conditioned emotionality and 'causes' whose necessity, urgency or rightness is only conditioned into them, are necessarily, right."

"The sight of God in woman is the most perfect of all." Ibn Arabi."

"You fear tomorrow: yet yesterday is just as dangerous."

"Prescribing hard work for the soft, or easy work for the hardy, is generally nonsense. What is always needed in any aim is right effort, right time, right people, right materials."

"The mine is always bigger than the gem."

"Sufis (the name for the realised individual, not the learner or follower) are reunited with objective Reality and Unity."

"If you want to be a calligrapher, write, and write, and write."

"From imperial, economic and ideological causes, many cultures are the inheritors, and hence the prisoners, of attitudes of scorn and disdain for other faiths " outlooks which are not ennobling to anyone."

"Nobody can stand between you and knowledge if you are fit for it."

"EXPECTATION If, from time to time, you give up expectation, you will be able to perceive what it is you are getting."

"Sufism is transmitted by means of the human exemplar, the teacher."

"I am an idol worshipper; for I understand what idol worship means, and the idolater does not."

"People who speak or act in an ordinary fashion are most likely to be those who have been the recipients of higher experiences. But because they do not rage around, wild-eyed, people think that they are very ordinary folk and therefore not aware of anything unknown to the general run of man."

"Saying 'yes' to others is often saying 'no' to yourself."

"Because there is a word for perfection, people will always imagine that they know it."

"It is necessary to note," says Rumi, "that opposite things work together, even though nominally opposed" (Fihi Ma Fihi)."

"There is something in man which can detect real love. We rub it out, or muffle it, by substitute-love."

"I have heard all that you have had to say to me on your problems.You ask me what to do about them.It is my view that your real problem is that you are a member of the human race.Face that one first."

"The mind often becomes a prison of its own making."

"You can keep going on much less attention than you crave."

"It is the goldsmith who can assay the gold."

"The basic urge toward mysticism is never, in the unaltered man, clear enough to be recognized for what it is."

"Right time, right place, right people equals success.Wrong time, wrong place, wrong people equals most of the real human history."

"Make mankind your dwelling place."

"Sufism was formerly a reality without a name: now it is a name without a reality."

"Because sugar is not arsenic, many graves are full."

"You must empty out the dirty water before you fill the pitcher with clean."

"Sufism is the essence of all religions."

"You must improve yourself on a higher level if you are to be able to help people, and not just weep over them."

"No surgeon can treat the wounds of the tongue."

"It is not Sufism if it does not perform its function for you. A cloak is no longer a cloak if it does not keep a man warm."

"A Sufi is one who is not bound by anything nor does he bind anything."

"The degree of necessity determines the development of organs in man, therefore increase your necessity."

"Learn about hornets from those who have been stung by them."

"The donkey which brought you to this door must be dismissed if you want to get through it'."

"Show a man too many camels' bones,or show them to him too often,and he will not be able to recognize a camel when he comes across a live one."

"Sufism is experiential. Capacities, even those for learning beyond a certain point, are provoked by Sufis, by one's own efforts and what results from them, and by an element of what is referred to by Sufis as the Divine."

"If a Manx cat tells you that it is trying to preserve its long, beautiful tail, you don't have to believe it - especially if you have eyes."

"Advice is priceless: when it becomes interference it is preposterous."

"The door of illumination is open to those for whom other doors are closed."

"Do not dwell upon whether you will put yourself into the hands of a teacher. You are always in his hands."

"Those who say 'I am ready to learn', or 'I am not ready to learn' are as often mistaken as they are correct in their surmise."

"Haste is from the Devil."

"The power of Allah: no sound, no shape, no form. But when it manifests, none can resist it."