Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.

If, from time to time, you give up expectation, you will be able to perceive what it is you are getting.

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.

... when we are talking about 'Christians' and 'Moslems' we must first make sure that we are talking about people who have an idea, which should be more or less correct, as to what the other is supposed to believe and what he is expected to do as a consequence of that belief.

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.

You need not wonder whether you should have an unreliable person as a friend. An unreliable person is nobody's friend.

The secret of Sufism is that it has no secret at all'.