Every noble work is at first impossible.

We are to take no counsel with flesh and blood; give ear to no vain cavils, vain sorrows and wishes; to know that we know nothing, that the worst and cruelest to our eyes is not what it seems, that we have to receive whatsoever befalls us as sent from God above, and say, "It is good and wise,--God is great! Though He slay me, yet I trust in Him." Islam means, in its way, denial of self. This is yet the highest wisdom that heaven has revealed to our earth.

Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world.

Labor, wide as the earth, has its summit in heaven.

Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.

A person who is gifted sees the essential point and leaves the rest as surplus.

There is but one thing without honor, smitten with eternal barrenness, inability to do or to be,-insincerity, unbelief.