The Sufis Quotes

Whoever has not first dug a well, should not steal a minaret.

The mine is always bigger than the gem.

Better to quarrel with a friend than to support enemies.

Abu-Yaqub al-Susi: 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.

Do not tell your secrets to everyone in this headquarters, Earth. We have surveyed it well. There was nobody to whom to entrust secrets.

The Apparent is the Bridge to the Real

A short time in the presence of the Friends (the Sufis) is better than a hundred years’ sincere, obedient dedication.

If you have two shirts, sell one and with the money buy a flower’.

If you are covetous, you are a prisoner: If you are greedy, you will never be filled.

Hazrat Ali, in a saying attributed to him, says: ‘Man is in disguise, covered by his tongue’.

Now that I have found thee, I know that in the first step I took, I moved away from thee.

None meets harm who knows his capacity.

No surgeon can treat the wounds of the tongue.

Give and TakeThe Chief takes less than he is givenAnd gives more than he has taken

Give and TakeThe Chief takes less than he is givenAnd gives more than he has taken.

Those who can’t, try: those who can, don’t have to.

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

Rust through washing never became white.

The bird which has no knowledge of pure water, has his beak in salt water all year round.

Whoever has taught me one letter has made me his slave.

To Him who has sense, a sign is enoughFor the heedless, however, a thousand expositions are not enough.

Sufism is always systematised only for limited or transitory periods: because Sufism is primarly instrumental, not for enjoyment or display.

Everyone does not know the secrets of TruthThe States of Truth are not evidential.

He is the completed Man who, from his completeness, performs, with his Mastership, the work of a slave.

Whoever knows God, does not (any longer) say “God”.

Continuously, in commemoration of the FriendWe drank wine, even before the creation of the vine.

Eat what you desire, but dress like other people.

Miracles, to the Sufi, are not evidential, they are instrumental.

When there is a true or useful thing, there is sure to be a counterfeit.

Information about the activities of one body of Sufis may be harmful to the potential of another.

Better the demon which makes you improve than the angel who threatens.

The sort of man who, throwing a stone upon the ground, would miss.

Have the nature of a dervish: then wear a stylish cap.

Pick up a bee from kindness, and learn the limitations of kindness.

No effort makes a black crow into a white hawk.

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

I am the Real, for I have not ceased to be real – through the Real.

A book, for the Sufis, is an instrument as much as it is something to give information.

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

BARQI: AESTHETICS IS ONLY THE LOWEST FORM OF PERCEPTION OF THE REAL.

Generosity is also marked by doing what one says one will do. Saadi teaches: ‘when the generous promise, they perform

When sense has left a head, it should be called a tail.

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

Nothing cheap without reason.

Sufi secrets are perceived, not understood by words.

Of whom can we think well when it is believed that if nothing bad is done to you, this has been a kindness?

Sufi Teachers are not, as you might hope, people who make you feel peace and harmony.

Sufism is education, in that it has a body of knowledge which it transmits to those who have not got it.

Sufism is that which succeeds in bringing to man the High Knowledge.

Whatever goes into a salt-mine becomes salt.