Never have I dealt with anything more difficult than my own soul, which sometimes helps me and sometimes opposes me. - Al-Ghazali

matter with you, Commander of the Believers?’ To this he would reply: ‘The time has come for a trust which God offered to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they refused to carry it; they were wary of it, but I have taken it on.

O Lower self, which is better, the Garden of eternity or a glimpse of this world's unlawful bounty and its wretched, fleeting rubbish?

When abstinence is a tool spurning of what is held dear, it is inconceivable without embracing something even dearer.