Whenever the time of Prayer approached, ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib, may God be pleased with him and ennoble his countenance, used to quake and change colour.… - Al-Ghazali

"The saint Shibli one day went to see the Sufi Thaury; he found him sitting so still in contemplation that not a hair of his body moved. He; asked him, "From whom didst thou learn to practice such fixity of contemplation?" Thaury answered, "From a cat which I saw waiting at a mouse-hole in an attitude of even greater fixity than this.

إن قصرت بصيرتك عن إدراك الجلال والكمال والميل إلى مطالعته والفرح به والعشق له، فلا تقصر عن الميل إلى المنعم المحسن إليك. ولا تكونن أقل من الكلب، فإنه يحب صاحبه الذي يحسن إليه

Worldly desires were striving to keep me by their chains just where I was, while the voice of faith was calling, `To the road! to the road! What is left of life is but little and the journey before you is long. All that keeps you busy, both intellectually and practically, is but hypocrisy and delusion. If you do not prepare now for eternal life, when will you prepare? If you do not now sever these attachments, when will you sever them?’ On hearing that, the impulse would be stirred and the resolution made to take to flight.