Sayings of the Imam 'Ali: Sufi quotations
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The Imam ’Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661), cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet (pbuh), fourth caliph, is the source of nearly all the initiatic chains of Sufism. His Nahj al-balagha is a classic of wisdom.
Imam ’Ali
The human being is hidden beneath his tongue.
Imam ’Ali: fear sin all the more
Fear sin all the more when you are out of sight; that is where your witness is also your judge.
Imam ’Ali: the good neighbour
The good neighbour is not the one who refrains from harming you, but the one who can put up with your nuisance.
Imam ’Ali
If you do not know where you come from, you will never know where you are going.
Imam ’Ali
By talking too much, one accumulates errors. By erring too much, one loses one’s modesty. To lose one’s modesty is to lose one’s virtue, one’s venerability. To lose one’s venerability is to have a dead heart. To have a dead heart is to deserve hell.
Imam ’Ali: child of Adam
Child of Adam, you are nothing more than the sum of your days. Let a day pass, and you are shorn of a portion of yourself.
Imam ’Ali
Fear Allah in your dealings with your neighbours. Our Prophet recommended them to us so often that we thought he meant us to bequeath them a share of our goods.
Imam ’Ali
Every reward is measured by the trouble undertaken to obtain it. Without doubt and hope, souls could not do battle with the shaytan.
Imam ’Ali
When something weighs on me, I hasten to prayer.
Imam ’Ali
Learn to despise death; its pangs are nothing other than the fear it inspires.
Imam ’Ali
The vile pursue the faults of others as flies follow refuse.
Imam ’Ali
Seize a wise thought wherever you find it. For a wise thought may lodge in the heart of the hypocrite, so tormented in that heart that it ends up leaving it to join its fellows in the heart of the man of faith.
Imam ’Ali
Be pious, disdain the world despite its seductions, regret nothing of what escapes you of it, proclaim the truth, work for eternity, be the enemy of the tyrant and the support of the oppressed.