“The more you look at 'common knowledge', the more you realise that it is more likely to be common than it is to be knowledge.No real knowledge is common.”

“One can give or withhold in a manner far more effective, sophisticated, useful, which is quite invisible to people who think that giving or withholding is done by external assessment. If you seek some mark of favour or 'promotion', know that you are not ready for it. Progress comes through capacity to learn, and is irresistible. Nobody can stand between you and knowledge if you are fit for it.”

“Anybody or anything may stand between you and knowledge if you are unfit for it.”

“Knowledge is something which you can use.Belief is something which uses you.”

“Self-mortification, far from producing liberation from material things, is far more likely to cause either an unhinged mind, delusions or a masochistic taste for more suffering, experienced, of course, as joy.”

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

“Talent is the presence of ability and absence of understanding about the source and operation of knowledge.”