We view Sufism not as an ideology that molds people to the right way of belief or action, but as an art or science that can exert a beneficial influence on individuals and societies, in accordance with the needs of those individuals and societies ... Sufi study and development gives one capacities one did not have before.

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.

The union of the mind and intuition which brings about illumination, and the development which the Sufis seek, is based upon love.

History is not usually what has happened. History is what some people have thought to be significant.

The word 'choice' is a fraud while people choose only what they have been taught to choose.

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

The impatient man is his own enemy; he slams the door on his own progress.