Desires make slaves out of kings and patience makes kings out of slaves.
Al-GhazaliRead
People count with self-satisfaction the number of times they have recited the name of God on their prayer beads, but they keep no beads for reckoning the number of idle words they speak.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the contrast between spiritual practices and the often overlooked impact of meaningless speech.
Al-Ghazali's quote emphasizes the human tendency to focus on superficial religious rituals, such as counting prayers, while neglecting the importance of our everyday speech and its consequences. It invites us to reflect on the value of our words and the depth of our spiritual practices, suggesting that mindfulness towards both our prayers and our speech is essential for genuine spiritual growth.
Themes
SpiritualityWordsPrayerMindfulnessSelf-Reflection
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about mindfulness, one might say, 'As Al-Ghazali reminds us, we should be mindful of our words in addition to our spiritual practices.'
More from Al-Ghazali
All quotes →The happiness of the drop is to die in the river.
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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.
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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
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A man of bad character punishes his own soul.
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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.
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