Talking about straws and camels' backs is just one way of approaching things. If you have enough camels, no backs need be broken.

One of the tragedies of modern times is that people have come to believe that something said by someone in the past, perhaps for illustrative or provocation purposes, actually represents that person's beliefs at the time.

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

To be obsessed by the idea of freedom, for instance, is itself a form of slavery. Such people are in the chains of the hope of freedom, and are therefore able to do little else than struggle with them.

The Sufi is One who does not care when something is taken from him, but who does not cease to seek for what he has not.

Enemies are often former or potential friends who have been denied - or think that they have been denied - something.

You are adrift while you still think that a means is an end.