Attar Quotes

“What is humanity? To feel pain at the sorrows of our neighbours, to feel humiliated at the humiliation of fellow-beings.”
― Idries Shah, The World Of The Sufi

“¿Qué es la humanidad? Sentir dolor ante las penas de tus vecinos, sentirse humillado ante la humillación de tus semejantes.”
― Idries Shah, The World Of The Sufi

“When a learned philosopher was in the throes of death, he said: Had I known how listening is superior to speaking, I would not have wasted my life preaching. Eloquent speech is perhaps as fine as gold but unspoken words are even more precious.”
― Attar, translated by Sholeh Wolpe

“Attar believed the only commendable and worthwhile connection between man and God to be a Lover Beloved relationship. Like many other Muslim mystics before him, Attar emphasized that the superiority and pre-eminence of Adam over the other angels lay in Adam's/ man's love-passion and agony. In fact, in Attarr's spiritual teachings, the cure for all psychological and spiritual ailments lies in the transformative suffering and passion of love (dard). That is why he asks for that passion to be increased:

   Give me an ounce of pain, O you
   Who cure all. pain, for left without
   Your pain, my soul will die.
   To heretics let heresy apply,
   And to the faithful—grant them faith;
   But for the heart of Attar, let
   One ounce of your pain remain.”
― Hossein Elahi Ghomshei PhD, Beauty, Love, and Wisdom in Persian Poetry: From Attar to Rumi, Shabistari and Hafiz

“Divinity in Its Transcendence, the Absolute before any Self-manifestation, cannot be contemplated, for contemplation implies a subject and an object, and the Absolute is beyond all duality, all "place" and all knowing. It is the Mystery, the utterly inscrutable secret in the deepest part of Being, veiled behind all the inmost veils, yet somehow luring and teasing the lover. And the lover waits outside the door, ready to surrender his life at a sign.”
― Peter Lamborn Wilson, The Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry

“The drop of rain knows who and what it is as long as it remains a drop. When it falls back into the sea, its origin, it can no longer know.”
― Peter Lamborn Wilson, The Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry