The only effort worth making is the one it takes to learn the geography of one's own nature.

There is a way to master silence Control its curves, inhabit its dark corners And listen to the hiss of time outside

If you don't know why you like a thing, it is usually worth your while to attempt to find out.

Since the world began has any man ever been able to know what would happen tomorrow? The world of men is today. I'm asking you to open your heart today. Tomorrow belongs to Allah.

Whereas the tourist generally hurries back home at the end of a few weeks or months, the traveler belonging no more to one place than to the next, moves slowly over periods of years, from one part of the earth to another. Indeed, he would have found it difficult to tell, among the many places he had lived, precisely where it was he had felt most at home.

The only effort worth making is the one it takes to learn the geography of one's own nature.

[A]nother important difference between tourist and traveler is that the former accepts his own civilization without question; not so the traveler, who compares it with the others, and rejects those elements he finds not to his liking.