Wisdom

"Humility cannot be taught by propaganda, though slavery can. Shouting for humility is a form of arrogance. One of my most abiding recollections is of a priest at a religious occasion once roaring, in the most threatening way imaginable: ‘O our Lord God, we most humbly pray…!’Real humility is not always the same as apparent humility. Remember that fighting against self-conceit is still fighting: and that it will tend to suppress it temporarily. It does not cure anything. Remember, too, that humility itself does not bring an automatic reward: it is a means to an end. It enables a person to operate in a certain manner."

"Excellence will give you the recognition you crave for, but humility will keep you standing longer than expected."

"I'm not trying to tell you," he said, "that only educated and scholarly men are able to contribute something valuable to the world. It's not so. But I do say that educated and scholarly men, if they're brilliant and creative to begin with — which, unfortunately, is rarely the case—tend to leave infinitely more valuable records behind them than men do who are merely brilliant and creative. They tend to express themselves more clearly, and they usually have a passion for following their thoughts through to the end. And--most important—nine times out of ten they have more humility than the unscholarly thinker."

"I'm not trying to tell you," he said, "that only educated and scholarly men are able to contribute something valuable to the world. It's not so. But I do say that educated and scholarly men, if they're brilliant and creative to begin with — which, unfortunately, is rarely the case—tend to leave infinitely more valuable records behind them than men do who are merely brilliant and creative. They tend to express themselves more clearly, and they usually have a passion for following their thoughts through to the end. And — most important—nine times out of ten they have more humility than the unscholarly thinker."

"The fate of warnings in political affairs is to be futile when the recipient wishes otherwise."

"Our superintendence in instruction and discipline is the office of the Word, from whom we learn frugality and humility, and all that pertains to love of truth, love of humanity, and love of excellence. And so, in a word, being assimilated to God by participation in moral excellence, we must not retrograde into carelessness and sloth. But labor, and faint not."

"Be gentle and humble in heart."

"Pity is unto the bird that takes refuge and stands on the tall tree with shallow roots to boast with their sweet melodies for they shall sing a harmonious dirge the day the strong storm will arrive. But the birds that shall build their nest on the tall tree deeply rooted in the soil shall smile and sing hallelujah when they see the storm coming from afar"

"When people hurt you over and over, think of them like sandpaper. They may scratch and hurt you a bit, but in the end you end up polished and they end up useless."

"Respond with love even when someone wants to hurt you."

"It is a blessed gift to witness the beauty of each day."

"You have to look closely to see clearly."

"Where's your church"We're standing in it."But this is a bookstore and it's a Friday."Yes, but you might also choose to see it as a cathedral of the human spirit-a storehouse consecrated to the full spectrum of human experience. Just about every idea we've ever had is in here somewhere. A place containing great thinking is a sacred space."

"I wrote this book to show you that a cure is entirely possible because I've seen it happen over and over again."

"The whole of Nature is a book, the heavens a scroll; and they were intended to be used as such."

"What you think and how you think, influences what you ink and how you ink."

"There is no better adviser than a good book."

"A good book is a true friend who never betrays."

"The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk. As Prince Dara Shikoh says, in a Persian poem: Do you wish to be included with the Lords of Sight? From speech (then) pass on to experience. By saying 'Unity', you do not become a monotheist; The mouth does not become sweet from the word 'Sugar"

"Definition of a Sufi To learn, people must give up a great deal, and this includes ritual as something from which they imagine they might learn. It is to emphasise this that Abu-Yaqub al-Susi, quoted in Kalabadhi's Taaruf, states that the Sufi is 'One who does not care when something is taken from him, but who does not cease to seek for what he has not."