“Anyone can see that an ass laden with books remains a donkey. A human being laden with the undigested results of a tussle with thoughts and books, however, still passes for wise.”

“Please, not again what you studied, how long you spent at it, how many books you wrote, what people thought of you - but: what did you learn?”

“The human being, whether he realises it or not, is trusting someone or something every moment of the day.”

“When the human being says:'It is not true...'He may mean:'I don't know about it, so I think it is untrue.'Or:'I don't like it.”

“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.”

“When the ignorant have become numerous or powerful enough, they have been referred to by a special name. This names is 'the Wise'.”

“Few things are more absurd than wise saws originally designed to inculcate or maintain the social needs of a society long past - when they are applied to today.”