371 Quotes by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Whatever your life’s pursuit – art, poetry, sculpture, music, whatever your occupation may be – you can be as spiritual as clergy, always living a life of praise.

The true way of progressing through music is to evolve freely, to go forward, not caring what others think, and in this way, together with one’s development in music, to harmonize the life of one’s soul, one’s surroundings and one’s affairs.

Vocal music is considered to be the highest, for it is natural; the effect produced by an instrument which is merely a machine cannot be compared with that of the human voice. However perfect strings may be, they cannot make the same impression on the listener as the voice which comes direct from the soul as breath, and has been brought to the surface through the medium of the mind and the vocal organs of the body.

Don’t be concerned about being disloyal to your pain by being joyous.

For instance man feels the sensation of joy and depression in the center called solar plexus; however, this does not mean that joy or depression is there, but that this center is sensitive to such experiences.

There is no end to one’s faults. To think of them makes one humble.

Great as it is, the knowledge of self, if there is not that natural desire raging like fire does not manifest.

If a man through his life became like an angel he would accomplish very little; the accomplishment which is most desirable for man is to fulfill the obligations of human life.

Very often in everyday life one sees that by losing one’s temper with someone who has already lost his, one does not gain anything but only sets out upon the path of stupidity. He who has enough self-control to stand firm at the moment when the other person is in a temper, wins in the end. It is not he who has spoken a hundred words aloud who has won; it is he who has perhaps spoken only one word.