Sufi Wisdom Quotes & Sayings

Ignorance is the Mother of Opposition — Idries Shah

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

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. — Idries Shah

It is not long before those who are obedient in service obtain command. — Saadi

One day the cub will become a wolf, even if it has been reared among the sons of man. — Idries Shah

If behaviors become equivalent it is possible for knowledge to become equivalent (for any two individuals). — Wasif Ali Wasif

Ibn El-Arabi wrote, 'The Teacher is he who hears you, then unveils you to yourself — Idries Shah

He who has no light in his heart, what will he gain from the festival of lamps. — Wasif Ali Wasif

Too much kindness towards the fox may mean doom for the rabbit. — Idries Shah

Remedy
Your medicine is in you, and you do not observe it. Your ailment is from yourself, and you do not register it.
Hazrat Ali — Idries Shah

Farsi Couplet:
Agar firdaus bar roo-e zameen ast,
Hameen ast-o hameen ast-o hameen ast.


English Translation:
If there is a paradise on earth,
It is this, it is this, it is this — Amir Khusrau

Farsi Couplet:
Naala-e zanjeer-e Majnun arghanoon-e aashiqanast
Zauq-e aan andaza-e gosh-e ulul-albaab neest


English Translation:
The creaking of the chain of Majnun is the orchestra of the lovers,
To appreciate its music is quite beyond the ears of the wise. — Amir Khusrau

It is experience which teaches, not controversy based on supposed logic and assumptions of what is likely to be true. — Idries Shah

In the bosom of success lie not delights but deprivations — Wasif Ali Wasif

In reality, every reality is a veil over reality. — Wasif Ali Wasif

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

We wish to become one thing or another, rather we wish to become everything and in this pursuit of becoming everything we only end up becoming idiots. — Wasif Ali Wasif

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

Much travel is needed before the raw man is ripened. — Idries Shah

There can only be two contexts of your life. Either you are the author of your life, or He (the Creator) is the author of your life.
People who feel that their creation is the responsibility of the Creator, find opportunities unexpectedly.
Those who feel that their lives are their own, have to fashion their own means. — Wasif Ali Wasif

Death is the protector of life and life is the process of death. — Wasif Ali Wasif

Life abides between life as if it were an island amidst its own ocean — Wasif Ali Wasif

When the child is ill, the mother will know how to pray. — Wasif Ali Wasif

Practise your knowledge, for knowledge without practice is a body without life — Idries Shah

A Sufi has a right to be served, but he has no right to demand. Maruf Karkhi of Khorasan — Idries Shah

A Sufi school comes into being in order to flourish and disappear, not to leave traces in mechanical ritual, or anthropologically survivals. — Idries Shah

The world is ancient, but it has not lost its newness. — Wasif Ali Wasif

Do not think that your magic ring will work if you are not yourself Solomon. — Idries Shah

The period before the dawn of knowledge is called the age of darkness. — Wasif Ali Wasif

The object of Sufi preparatory study, however, being to illustrate, expose and out-manoeuvre superficial ambition. — Idries Shah

In order to spend out our time (life) we sell some of this time. We work for someone, we labour. In freedom we do slavery. — Wasif Ali Wasif

Trust is needed before lessons can be learnt. — Idries Shah

Poets must be grounded in the education of the arts, drama, history, mysticism, esotericism, and philosophy. To gain knowledge and become learned of the above is easy - read. Poets should apply this knowledge to their work, so a poet will advance to the next level, to their next phase of their emotional, psychological and spiritual development, growing in years in a short space of time, in hours or months if he or she is an avid reader. This knowledge will birth work that is not meretricious but of noble parentage. — Abigail George

Deteriorated science is a cult, so is imitative or deteriorated Sufism. — Idries Shah

MAGHRIBI: Learning is in activity. Learning through words alone is minor activity. — Idries Shah

The Sufis say, "This is not a religion; it is religion — Idries Shah

Investigation after declaration of submission leads astray. — Wasif Ali Wasif

Life is not only Newton, it is also Milton. — Wasif Ali Wasif

Love was supposed to be the easiest path to divinity — Soroosh Shahrivar

Disappointment cannot exist without expectation. The expected apricot is never as sweet when it reaches the mouth. — Idries Shah

In love, there is no distinction between success and failure. If love remains then even separation is union otherwise even union is separation. — Wasif Ali Wasif

The ocean sleeps. The ocean wakes. And the waking of the ocean is the waking of the soul. At midnight wakefulness springs from within the ocean. — Wasif Ali Wasif

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

The Choice of a purpose is more important than success. — Wasif Ali Wasif

A yellow dog is brother to the jackal. — Idries Shah

As with any other specialisation, teaching is a vocation, open only to those who are truly capable of discharging its functions. — Idries Shah

Sufism is known by means of itself. — Idries Shah

Sufis are those who have expunged from their minds the human tendencies of envy and enmity. — Idries Shah

When the lion had eaten its fill, and the jackals had taken their share, the ants came along and finished up the meat from the bones of the haughty stag. — Idries Shah

Sleep is a mirror of life in which can be seen the reflection of death. — Wasif Ali Wasif

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

A man is happy who is happy with his Naseeb(allotted portion). — Wasif Ali Wasif

Sufis aim to refine human consciousness. This is Sufi mysticism: not mystification or magic, but a specific Path. — Idries Shah

Each flies with its own kind: pigeon with pigeon, hawk with hawk. — Idries Shah

Be kind to the hawk and harm the sparrow. — Idries Shah

He who is fortunately enlightened [the Sufi]
Knows that sophistry is from the devil and love from Adam. — Idries Shah

Khusrau darya prem ka, ulti wa ki dhaar,
Jo utra so doob gaya, jo dooba so paar.

English Translation.

Oh Khusrau, the river of love
Runs in strange directions.
One who jumps into it drowns,
And one who drowns, gets across. — Amir Khusrau

There is a Persian proverb: 'To test that which has been tested is ignorance.' To try to test something without the means of testing is even worse. — Idries Shah

A craftsman pulled a reed from the reedbed,
cut holes in it, and called it a human being.
Since then, it's been wailing a tender agony
of parting, never mentioning the skill
that gave it life as a flute — Rumi

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

Do we find ourself or does our self get demolished? — Donna Goddard

He had found riches beyond worldly imagination. He had found the never ending well of love. — Soroosh Shahrivar

Farsi Couplet:
Mun tu shudam tu mun shudi,mun tun shudam tu jaan shudi
Taakas na guyad baad azeen, mun deegaram tu deegari


English Translation:
I have become you, and you me,
I am the body, you soul;
So that no one can say hereafter,
That you are someone, and me someone else. — Amir Khusrau

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

If a society has no moral foundations then success is a threat. Every successful person thinks everyone else is a failure, and this is the proof of failure. Conquering the world and dying empty-handed on foreign shores is a paradox of such success. — Wasif Ali Wasif

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. — Idries Shah

The main problem is that most commentators are accustomed to thinking of spiritual schools as 'systems', which are more or less alike, and which depend upon dogma and ritual: and especially upon repetition and the application of continual and standardised pressures upon their followers.
The Sufi way, except in degenerate forms which are not to be classified as Sufic, is entirely different from this. — Idries Shah

The totality of life cannot be understood, so runs Sufi teaching, if it is studied only through the methods which we use in everyday living. — Idries Shah

When the eye becomes the heart, the heart becomes the eye. — Wasif Ali Wasif

Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Wisdom: Something you can learn without knowing it. — Idries Shah

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

Kunley belongs to a spiritual school of thought known as crazy wisdom. Every religion has its branch of crazy wisdom. The Christians have their Fools for Christ. The Muslims have their Sufi Mast-Qalanders. The Jews have Woody Allen. Yet none is as crazy, or as wise, as Drukpa Kunley. — Eric Weiner

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

As long as man was in the moolight he desired to reach the moon ... there was bliss in the moonlight but the moon itself was distant. Moonlight was near but man longed for the moon ... man reached the moon but there he was without moonlight.
If one reaches the moon one does not find moonlight any longer and if one is in moonlight one does not find the moon. It is a strange fact that one is only because of the other ... one is a sign of the other yet both are forever separate. If the Beloved is the Moon, moonlight is His remembrance. When the Beloved is present His remembrance is not and when His remembrance is present the Beloved is not. Proximity to one is distance from the other, Union with one is separation from the other. Thus union is hidden in every separation and separation in every union. — Wasif Ali Wasif

He that is purified by love is pure; and he that is absorbed in the Beloved and hath abandoned all else is a Sufi.
Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah. — Idries Shah

Virtually all organisations known to you work largely by means of your greed. — Idries Shah

This life is but a dream. A state of sleep but how unfortunate that man's eyes open only when they are about to be closed (forever). — Wasif Ali Wasif

One who has no beloved in the country can never love the country. — Wasif Ali Wasif

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. — Idries Shah

Sleep is the boundary between being/existence and not-being/non-existence. — Wasif Ali Wasif

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

Sufism," according to the Sufi, "is an adventure in living, necessary adventure. — Idries Shah

Do not destroy anybody's peace. You will find peace. — Wasif Ali Wasif

With faith one attains and realises peace and harmony. With doubt one destroys and gains freedom to move ontowards. — Fazal Inayat-Khan

The would-be Sufi needs guidance precisely because books, texts, while telling you what is needed, do not tell you when. — Idries Shah

A Sufi is one who is not bound by anything nor does he bind anything — Idries Shah

The door of illumination is open to those for whom other doors are closed. — Idries Shah

Intellect is the knowledge obtained by experience of names and forms; wisdom is the knowledge which manifests only from the inner being; to acquire intellect one must delve into studies, but to obtain wisdom, nothing but the flow of divine mercy is needed; it is as natural as the instinct of swimming to the fish, or of flying to the bird. Intellect is the sight which enables one to see through the external world, but the light of wisdom enables one to see through the external into the internal world. — Hazrat Inayat Khan

An old fool is worse than a young one: For the young may always grow wise. (Zohair) — Idries Shah