Quote

Only man can stop being fully man. He can ascend above all degres of universal existence and by the same token fall below the level of the basest of creatures.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Age: 91
Born: 1933
Born: April 7
Philosopher
Professor
University Teacher
Writer
Teheran
Basest
Levels
Ascend
Stop
Token
Existence
Tokens
Fall
Fully
Men
Creatures
Universal
Level

More quotes by Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Image
Justice is inseparable from truth in human life.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Image
Spiritual guidance needs guidance. It's like comparing walking on the ground and mountain climbing. Once you learn how to walk, you can walk on the ground by yourself, but if you want to climb Mount Everest, you need a guide.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Image
The Islamic world doesn't stop in the Arab world or Persia. There is the whole Turkic world, the Central Asian world, South Asian world, Southeast Asian world, and African world.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Image
The life of Islamic philosophy did not terminate with Ibn Rushd nearly eight hundred years ago, as thought by Western scholarship for several centuries. Rather, its activities continued strongly during the later centuries, particularly in Persia and other eastern lands of Islam, and it was revived in Egypt during the last century.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Image
At all costs we should avoid considering our love of God to be superior to the love of the other for GodLet us love God and leave it for Him to decide on the intensity and sincerity of our loves, as well as of our differing views of Him
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Image
The Shariah has many other functions but also protects the tarqiah it protects the spiritual path.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Image
All Muslims stand before God and they are their own priests.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Image
In fact many Hindu yogis and Sufis met, they became friends, they spoke about the knowledge and love of God about all the similarities that exist. And then the simplicity of Islam, the fact these people practiced what they preached brought many, many Hindus into Islam.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Image
In the same way that we have a body and a soul and a spirit, our soul can't walk in the street without our body - we would be dead then. Religion is the same way it has to have a body, it has to have a form, it has to have structure. Without that, the soul cannot be prepared to follow the tariqah.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Image
Many people have criticized Islam for being just automatic, having no individuality, just surrendering your will to God, but we Muslims know very well that every moment of the day we have to practice the fact that to surrender one's self to God is an act of free will.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Image
In Islam, there is no priesthood and each person stands before God, like in the daily prayers, without an intermediary. That's in contrast to Christianity, where during the Eucharist, a priest has to officiate and the priest functions as a link - at least in Catholic Christianity - between the laity and God.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Image
I wish someone could get rid of individuality so easily one never gets rid of one's individuality completely. One gets rid of one's egotism, which is a very different matter.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Image
Yearning is inseparable from love, and since once doesn't have the object of love immediately, one has not fallen in the embrace of the beloved immediately, they are suffering. That's how they are related.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Image
Sufism has always had the function of purifying Islamic ethics and that fasting and tazkiya is like lighting a lamp.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Image
If God did not love us, we could not love him. And Sufis are those who have realized this love.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Image
Rumi is one of the great spokesmen for the Quranic instruction teaching that all prophets come from God and God does not create one religion, but many religions.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Image
The environmental crisis has deep spiritual, philosophical, and religious roots and causes. It is not merely the result of bad engineering.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Image
When one talks about being like a dead corpse in the hands of a spiritual teacher it means being able to surrender one's will, specially one's nafs al ammarah, that is a part of our soul which is again a Quranic term, which commands us to evil - we must surrender that. That's what it means. It doesn't make you become part of a cog of a machine.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Image
Why does one need a doctor if God has given us our body and we pray to Him for our help?
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Image
The Quran explicitly opposes the killing of innocent people and the Prophet was always careful in doing that. If they had to fight a war, he was always on the side of peace as soon as it was possible to make peace because that's what the Quran says also.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr