Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.

The more wakeful a man is to the things which surround him, the more asleep is he, and his waking is worse than his sleep.

If the path has been laid down, why the successive appearance of different teachers? Why would anyone reinvent the wheel, if everything were as cosy and sequential as primitive longing so easily convinces us?

None should say: 'I can trust' or 'I cannot trust' until he is a master of the option, of trusting or not trusting.

When people have a hard task to do - one which stretches them - they become less concerned with trivial matters.

Like the bat, the Sufi is asleep to 'things of the day' - the familiar struggle for existence which the ordinary man finds all-important - and vigilant while others are asleep. In other words, he keeps awake the spiritual attention dormant in others. That 'mankind sleeps in a nightmare of unfulfillment' is a commonplace of Sufi literature

Prescribing hard work for the soft, or easy work for the hardy, is generally nonsense. What is always needed in any aim is right effort, right time, right people, right materials.