Fabio Almeida

“In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself;”
― Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

“In a battle ‘Alī confronted a powerful enemy and after a fierce fight was able to throw the enemy to the ground and sit on his chest with his sword drawn. At this moment the enemy warrior spat in ‘Alī’s face, whereupon ‘Alī immediately disengaged himself and abstained from delivering a blow with his sword. The enemy warrior, who was an idol worshipper, had never seen such an event. He became agitated and asked ‘Alī why he had not killed him. The response of ‘Alī, which in the verses of the Mathnawī constitutes one of the masterpieces of Sufi poetry, was that ‘Alī was fighting at first for the preservation of the Truth, but once the enemy warrior spat in his face ‘Alī became angry, and he would never react on the basis of anger and certainly not get into a battle or slay someone for personal or selfish reasons. In Rūmī’s words, ‘Alī responded: Said he, “I wield the sword for the sake of the Truth, I am the servant of the Truth not the functionary of the body. I am the lion of the Truth, not the lion of passions, My action does witness bear to my religion.”
― Seyyed Hossein Nasr, The Garden of Truth: Knowledge, Love, and Action

“Both aristocracy and democracy are human ideals: the one saying that all men are valuable, the other that some men are more valuable. But nature does not say that cats are more valuable than mice; nature makes no remark on the subject. She does not even say that the cat is enviable or the mouse pitiable. We think the cat superior because we have (or most of us have) a particular philosophy to the effect that life is better than death.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

“A famous poem of Sa‘dī states: The children of Adam are members of a single body, For from the moment of creation they were made of one substance. When fate causes pain in any member, The other members cannot remain still. O thou who hath no sorrow in seeing the sorrow of others, Thou art not worthy of being called a human being.”
― Seyyed Hossein Nasr, The Garden of Truth: Knowledge, Love, and Action