THE BIRD AND THE WATERA bird which has not heard of fresh waterDips his beak in salt-water year after year.(Anwar-i-Suhaili)

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

The word 'choice' is a fraud while people choose only what they have been taught to choose.

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

Trying to force something is the best way to stop it happening.

Opinion is usually something which people have when they lack comprehensive information.

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

The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk.

Meditation - Before you learn how to meditate, you must unlearn what you think meditation might be.

Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun?

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

No! Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.

Some reviews give pain. This is regrettable, but no author has the right to whine. He was not obliged to be an author. He invited publicity, and he must take the publicity that comes along.

The man who says his prayers in the evening is a captain posting his sentries. After that he can sleep.

The present is the living sum-total of the whole past.

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.

I do different work, teaching and running around visiting universities and bookstores, and that prevents me from writing. But it's nice to be wanted as a writer.

My parents were very poor, but we never felt any sense of need or want. It was a very close, loving, tightly-knit family growing up, and I never felt any sense of deprivation or anything like that.

How could you stop loving me?

Measures are an innovation that changed a world of innocent and noble simplicity into one forever filled with dishonesty.

Lena Smoothed her hair. "Crazy weather you have down here.