Desires make slaves out of kings and patience makes kings out of slaves.
Al-GhazaliRead
Never have I dealt with anything more difficult than my own soul, which sometimes helps me and sometimes opposes me.
Interpretation
The struggle with one's own thoughts and emotions can be the most challenging aspect of life.
In this quote, Al-Ghazali reflects on the complexity of the human soul, emphasizing that the greatest battles we face often occur within ourselves. This internal struggle can manifest as a source of support or as an obstacle, demonstrating the dual nature of self-awareness and personal growth.
In practice
During a philosophy class, you might quote Al-Ghazali to illustrate the importance of introspection.
Desires make slaves out of kings and patience makes kings out of slaves.
The happiness of the drop is to die in the river.
To completely trust in Allah is to be like a child who knows deeply that even if he does not call for the mother, the mother is totally aware of his condition and is looking after him.
Do not fix hopes on your health, and do not laugh away life. Remember how they walked and now all their joints lie separately, and the tongue with which they talked lightly is eaten away by the worms
A man of bad character punishes his own soul.
The mere physical man is like the ant crawling on the paper, who observes black lettering and attributes its production to the pen and nothing more.
This is who I am: a flyspeck of human vanity in a trillion miles of stone-dead interstellar space; a graceless lump of flesh and fear in a remote desert where nearly everything that I can see or touch is designed to hurt me.
Look. This is your world! You can't not look. There is no other world. This is your world; it is your feast. You inherited this; you inherited these eyeballs; you inherited this world of color. Look at the greatness of the whole thing. Look! Don't hesitate - look! Open your eyes. Don't blink, and look, look - look further.
The sun never sets. It is only an appearance due to the observer's limited perspective. And yet, what a sublime illusion it is.
The Jewish story is the story of wandering. It is the story of extraordinary heterogeneous complication.
Today, the degradation of the inner life is symbolized by the fact that the only place sacred from interruption is the private toilet.
According to my definition of God, I'm not an atheist. Because I think God is everything. Whenever I open my eyes, I'm looking at God. Whenever I'm listening to something, I'm listening to God.
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