Sufi Proverb Quotes

I ask about the sky, but the answer is about a rope. ~ Idries Shah

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

There are two parts to the equation: feel good + take action. The ancient Sufi proverb says; Trust in Allah, but first tie your camel to a post. ~ Andrew Matthews

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

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

Satisfaction is a treasure which does not decay.
Proverb ~ Idries Shah

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

In the desert there is no sign that says, Thou shalt not eat stones. - Sufi proverb ~ Margaret Atwood

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

The illusion of 'I' is that you think you are 'I' while you are only 'am'; and that 'am' is the first person singular of the verb 'to be'. Since, for 'to be' you don't need to say 'I', but for to say 'I' you need 'to be', thus you are prior to 'I' as 'am', and that 'am' is 'to be'; therefore, to that note, on the ocean of 'am' alone, 'I' is only a wave. ~ ~Sw. Chidananda Tirtha

The Chinese have a very good proverb: The bird of sorrow has to fly, but see that it does not nest in your mind. ~ Angelo D. Scolozzi

EPITAPH OF JALALUDIN RUMI
When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men. ~ Idries Shah

Teachers open the door. You enter by yourself - Chinese proverb ~ Colleen Collins

You know the proverb, Mr. Hale, 'set a beggar on horseback, and he'll ride to the devil' - well, some of these early manufacturers did ride to the devil in a magnificent style - crushing human bone and flesh beneath their horses' hoofs without remorse. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

The Sufi Islam practiced in northern India is quite different from the Shi'a Islam practiced in Lebannon, which in turn is different from the Sunni Islam practiced in Pakistan. Even within a single branch of Islam there are customs and practices that vary by region and across time. Thus, the Islam of seventh-century Arabia is different from the Wahhabism that exists today in Saudi Arabia. ~ Deepa Kumar

You must be careful never to allow doubt to paralyze you. always take the decisions you need to take, even if you're not sure you're doing the right thing. You'll never go wrong if, when you make a decision, you keep in mind an old German proverb: 'The devil is in the detail.' Remember that proverb and you'll always be able to turn a wrong decision into a right one. ~ Paulo Coelho

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

You will never reach Mecca, because you are on the road to Samarkand ~ 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

O Love, O pure deep Love, be here, be now,

Be all – worlds dissolve into your stainless endless radiance,
Frail living leaves burn with your brighter than cold stares – Make me your servant, your breath, your core. ~ Rumi

To rule yourself is the ultimate power ~ Seneca The Younger

Materialism, attachment to things of the world, includes pride. Many religious people suffer from pride: taking pleasure or even delight in being good, or religious. ~ Idries Shah

...he didn't know if he was Chuang Tzu who dreamed he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Tzu. ~ Inio Asano

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

Children come into the world with that sense of celebration and delight in the awesomeness of life. Then we eat of that wonderful, terrible fruit depicted in the story of the Garden of Eden, and our lives become divided. In childhood we have innocent wholeness, which then is transformed into informed separateness. If one is lucky, a second transformation occurs later in life, a transformation into informed wholeness. A proverb puts it this way: in life our task is to go from unconscious perfection to conscious imperfection and then to conscious perfection. ~ Robert A. Johnson

I was you
and never knew it. ~ Rumi

There is a proverb in the South that a woman laughs when she can, and weeps when she pleases. ~ Jean Antoine Petit-Senn

There is an Italian proverb which saith, From my enemy let me defend myself; but from a pretensed friend Lord deliver me ~ Elizabeth I

Because you do not happen to be married does not make you essentially different from others. All of us are very much alike in appearance and emotional responses, in our capacity to think, to reason, to be miserable, to be happy, to love and be loved.

You are just as important as any others in the scheme of our Father in Heaven, and under His mercy no blessing to which you otherwise might be entitled will forever be withheld from you. . . .

I do not worry about you young men who have recently returned from the mission field. You know as well as I what you ought to do. It is your responsibility and opportunity, under the natural process of dating and courting, to find a wonderful companion and marry in the house of the Lord. Don't rush it unduly and don't delay it unduly. "Marry in haste and repent at leisure" is an old proverb that still has meaning in our time. But do not dally along in a fruitless, frustrating, and frivolous dating game that only raises hopes and brings disappointment and in some cases heartache.

Yours is the initiative in this matter. Act on it in the spirit that ought to prompt every honorable man who holds the priesthood of God. Live worthy of the companionship of a wonderful partner. Put aside any thought of selfish superiority and recognize and follow the teaching of the Church that the husband and wife walk side by side with neither one ahead nor behind.

Happy marriage is based on a foundation of equal yoking ~ Gordon B. Hinckley

When I talk of primordial innocence, I hear it in Sufi music with the nay flute. I see it in Coptic icons, in most traditional art, particularly art of the American Indian. I find the texts extraordinarily beautiful and very childlike and very simple. I've been particularly interested in American Indian texts. ~ John Tavener

Pitch a lucky man into the Nile, says the Arabian proverb, and he will come up with a fish in his mouth! ~ Nathaniel Parker Willis

شر البلية ما يضحك
The worst misfortunes are the ones that make you laugh ~ Arabic Proverb

He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever." - Chinese proverb ~ Kevin E. Kruse

The Jesus Trajectory Love is recklessness, not reason. Reason seeks a profit. Loves comes on strong, consuming herself, unabashed. Yet in the midst of suffering, Love proceeds like a millstone, hard-surfaced and straight forward. Having died to self-interest, she risks everything and asks for nothing. Love gambles away every gift God bestows. The words above were written by the great Sufi mystic Jalalludin Rumi.6 But better than almost anything in Christian scripture, they closely describe the trajectory that Jesus himself followed in life. ~ Cynthia Bourgeault

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

The foot feels the foot when it feels the ground. ~ Buddha

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

Holistic, unconditional love, agape, is the unity in which duality disappears. It is as if a certain internal boundary has vanished. With agape what we love is ourselves, the way a mother loves her child as herself. This is the meaning of loving another as yourself – transcending our phenomenal borders and experiencing ourselves in another and the other in, not apart from, us. Eventually, if love is comprehensive, it unites us with everything and allows us to know that we are everything. Therefore, how can we support the illusion of this isolated, separate self that is threatened by and defends itself from everything outside? Love returns us to the unity that is actually Reality. Reality is not the isolation, suspicion, envy, selfishness, and fear of loss that we have come to accept as normal; it is that we are all part of one Life. The same Spirit moves in us all. You come to know this better when you realize that we all have the same kinds of feelings, the same wish to be known and respected, to share ourselves and let down our defenses. We are continually faced with a choice between personal achievement, personal security, and comfort on the one hand, and working for the whole and helping everyone and everything toward perfection on the other. We are faced with a choice between looking out for ourselves and contributing wholeheartedly to a common good. We are faced with focusing on self-love or increasing our love of all Life. (p. 191) ~ Kabir Edmund Helminski

Zen phrase says The instant you speak about a thing you miss the mark. ~ Fritjof Capra

Don't bite the hand that feeds you; especially if you're dining alone. ~ Kevin Ansbro

God made man because He loves stories ~ Yiddish Proverb