"ServiceI will not serve God like a labourer, in expectation of my wages.Rabia el-Adawia."

"There is a saying that, according to what a person's mentality is, even an angel may seem to him to have a devil's face."

"To 'see both sides' of a problem is the surest way to prevent its complete solution. Because there are always more than two sides."

"Knowledge is not gained, it is there all the time. It is the "veils" which have to be dissolved in the mind."

"The worst of sages is a visitor of princes, the best of princes is a visitor of sages."

"The automatism of man is overcome, in the words of Dhun'Nun, by aiming for 'being as you were, where you were, before you were'."

"In the modern world we are in a paradoxical situation; because although in theory man knows that he can extend his attention to something and then remove it, he very often does not do so. In many areas he does not look at something and then detach from it, and look at something else.Once he has found something to interest himself in, he cannot detach himself from it efficiently, and therefore he cannot be objective. Note that, in most if not all languages, we have words like 'objectivity' which leads people to imagine that they have it, or can easily use it. That is equivalent (in reality if not in theory) to saying 'I know the word "gold, so I am rich."

"What you have to learn is how to find the unworldly in everything."

"Deteriorated science is a cult, so is imitative or deteriorated Sufism."

"The question of divine knowledge is so deep that it is really known only to those who have it."

"Forms are vehicles and instruments, and vehicles and instruments cannot be called good or bad without context."

"You have to learn to look at things in a new way."

"The Seeking of the Master. Musa Najib was asked why he charged a fee from those who came to his sessions; and why he often did not even address his audience. He said: 'I charge for this object lesson: people believe that knowledge must be given freely, and consequently mistake everything which is free for knowledge. I do not always lecture because, among Sufis, "The Master finds the pupil. The pupil has to be physically present: but he may be absent in every other sense. When I discern that a pupil is "present then I "find him, for then his inner call is audible to me, even if it is silent to him.' 'Seek and you will be found."

"Rust through washing never became white."

"Ignorance is the Mother of Opposition."

"Is your division of Understanding into Greater and Lesser common to all Sufis? Nothing which is put into words is common to all Sufis."

"People who have fallacious objectives are like the barren soil. The flowers grow from soil which is composed of the right objectives."

"Most of the supposedly Sufi organizations, exercises and "orders are in fact only of archaeological interest."

"If you assume that it is there, you will generally not be far off the truth."

"Much religious teaching in the world is in reality a confused or deteriorated form, very different from its roots."

"If you cannot sit on a throne like a king, seize, like a tent-pitcher, the rope of the Royal tent."

"Words, they say, are the food of minds. But, like other foods, they can do little by themselves."

"The secret protects itself. It is found only in the spirit and practice of the Work."

"What is sometimes thought to be clever is, significantly often, merely an advanced form of foolishness."

"Scholars of the East and West have heroically consecrated their whole working lives to making available, by means of their own disciplines, Sufi literary and philosophical material to the world at large. In many cases they have faithfully recorded the Sufis' own reiteration that the Way of the Sufis cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning."

"They say: 'Seek wisdom while you have the strength, or you may lose the strength without gaining wisdom."

"What you are pleased to call Sufism is merely the record of past method."

"Only the search for truth is valid, the desire for wisdom the motive. The method is assimilation, not study."

"The person that you feel yourself to be, according to the Sufis, is a false person, which has no true reality."

"A motto of the human race: Let me do as I like, and give me approval as well."

"But one may say something and yet not be able to do it. Try, for instance, lifting yourself up by the bootstraps."

"If you want to strengthen an enemy and make him exult - hate him."

"Sufism is the doing in this lifetime what any fool will be doing in then thousand years' time."

"Sufis hold that the superior experience and knowledge comes to a man or woman in exact accordance with his worth,capacity,and earning of it."

"Ali, Son of the Father of the SeekerAli said: 'None may arrive at the Truth until he is able to think that the Path itself may be wrong. This is because those who can only believe that it must be right are not believers, but people who are incapable of thinking otherwise than they already think. Such people are not men at all. Like animals they must follow certain beliefs, and during this time they cannot learn. Because they cannot be called "humanity, they cannot arrive at the Truth."

"SAYING OF SHEIKH ZIAUDIN:Self-justification is worse than the original offence."

"You call me an unbeliever. I shall therefore call you a True Believer since a lie is best met with one of similar magnitude."

"When tomorrow comes, think tomorrow's thoughts."

"It has truly been said that 'Humility is not so much a virtue as a necessity, in order to learn."

"If you have no troubles " buy a goat."

"If the father cannot, the son will finish the task."

"It will pass, whatever it is."

"In a village where everyone has only one leg, the biped will hop about more lamely than anyone else, if he knows what is good for him."

"Nothing can defile the Sufi, and he in fact purifies everything. Abu-Turab al-Nakhsabi."

"Exercise power by means of kindness, and you may be causing more damage than you could by cruelty. Neither approach is correct."

"No one is without fault. We can only aim to improve."

"The real generosity is when a man does something generous when nobody knows about it."

"The quest for knowledge is a process of self-awareness."

"Do not think that your magic ring will work if you are not yourself Solomon."

"Patience is the food of understanding."