Bediuzzaman Said Nursi Quotes

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Said Nursi, also widely known as Bediüzzaman (the Wonder of the Age) was born in 1877 in eastern Turkey. Bediüzzaman displayed an extraordinary intelligence and ability to learn from an early age, completing the normal course of religious school education at the early age of fourteen, when he obtained his diploma. He became famous for both his prodigious memory and his unbeaten record in debating with other religious scholars. Another characteristic Bediuzzaman displayed from an early age was an instinctive dissatisfaction with the existing education system, which when older he formulated into comprehensive proposals for its reform.…. See also: Bediüzzaman Said Nursi’s Short Biography and Bediuzzaman Said Nursi’s Poems

A fine but tarnished diamond is always preferable to a piece of glass, no matter how polished. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

A thing’s innate disposition does not lie. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

A thing’s innate disposition or God-given nature does not lie; whatever this innate disposition says is the truth. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

All true happiness, pure joy, sweet bounties, and unclouded pleasure are contained within the knowledge and love of God. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

All true happiness, pure joy, sweet bounties, and untroubled pleasure lie in knowledge of God and love of God; they cannot exist without them. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

An infinite power sufficient to create all the universe is necessary to create a single point and set it in its place. For every letter of this Mighty Book of the Universe, and particularly all its living letters, has a face looking to all the sentences, and an eye that beholds them. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Are we Muslims because we believe in God Almighty, or do we believe in God because we are Muslims? – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

At the resurrection, there will be the return of spirits to their bodies, the revivification of the bodies, and the remaking of the bodies. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Attributing to anything or anyone more good than God has attributed to them is not a positive move, nor does it mean that you have done them any good. A single grain of truth is preferable to a bumper harvest of false imaginings. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Be certain of this: that the highest aim of creation and its most important result are belief in God. The most exalted rank in humanity and its highest degree are the knowledge of God contained within belief in God. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Belief contains so many truths pertaining to God’s Names and the realities contained in the universe that the most perfect science, knowledge, and virtue is belief and knowledge of God originating in a belief based on argument and investigation. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Belief is not restricted to a brief affirmation based on imitation; rather, it has degrees and stages of development. It is like a seed growing into a fully grown, fruit-bearing tree; like the sun’s image in a mirror or in a drop of water to its images on the sea’s surface and to the sun itself. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Belief is so valuable and living that it infuses with life everything it enters! It transforms the fleeting glimmer of transitory life into eternal life, dispelling the transience in it. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

By thus rending the veil of monotony and showing that everything is in constant need of and obedient to His Lordship, He dispels heedlessness and turns humanity and jinn from (natural) causes to Himself as the Creator of causes. This basic principle is evident in the Qur’anic explanations. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Can you not see the numerous designs made by God as signs, similitudes, or analogies of resurrection? He has placed them in every era, the alteration of day and night, even in the coming and going of clouds. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Creation’s highest aim and most sublime result is belief in God. The most exalted rank of humanity is knowledge of God. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Do not suffer pain and torment without reason. Somebody All-Powerful and All-Compassionate owns everything. Rely on His Power and do not accuse His Compassion. Renounce grief and anxiety ad accept relief. Be rid of your troubles and find serenity. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Do what you do only for God’s sake, start for God’s sake, work for God’s sake, and act within the sphere of God’s good approval. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Establish with all of your powers a union with your fellows and brothers in religion that is stronger than the union of the worldly! – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

He causes huge bodies like sun to proclaim His Majesty through His Names the All-Gracious, Great, reciting: ‘ O Glorious One, O Great One, O Mighty One’, while tiny animate creatures like flies and fish proclaim His Mercy, reciting: ‘O Gracious One, O Compassionate One, O Generous One – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

He who believes in Divine Determining is saved from unhappiness – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

I am not free and independent; I am a traveler with duties. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

I can bear my own sorrows, but the sorrows arising from the calamities visiting Islam and Muslims have crushed me. I feel each blow delivered to the Muslim world as delivered first to my own heart. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

I can live without bread, but I can’t live without freedom. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

If knowledge lacks the insight of the heart, it is ignorance. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

If our inner being was to be turned to the outside, and our outer being turned inward, we would appear with more wounds and diseases than the Prophet Job. For each sin that we commit and each doubt that enters our mind causes wounds in our heart and our spirit. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

If you can visualize the whole of spring and see Paradise with the eye of belief, you may understand the utter majesty of everlasting Beauty. If you respond to that Beauty with the beauty of belief and worship, you will be a most beautiful creature. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

If you look at the Qur’an with the eyes of a sound heart, you will see that its six aspects are so brilliant and transparent that no darkness, no misguidance, no doubt or suspicion, no trickery could enter it or find a fissure through which to enter and violate its purity. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

If you want an enemy, the soul (nafs) is sufficient. If you want advice, death is sufficient. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

In Divine unity and the affirmation of it, Divine beauty and dominical perfection become apparent. If there was no unity, that pre-eternal treasury would remain hidden. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

In spring, the dead trees, roots, and animals come to life again exactly as they were, thus providing hundreds of thousands of examples, specimens, and proofs of the supreme resurrection. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

In the district of Hizan, through the influence of Shaikh Abdurrahman Tagi, known as Seyda, so many students, teachers, and scholars emerged, I was sure all Kurdistan took pride in them and their scholarly debates and wide knowledge and Sufi way. These were the people who would conquer the face of the earth! – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

It was to these books that I turned for an answer to the question: What is the meaning of la ilaha illa Allah? Again I was disappointed. The books were about Islam, not about Allah. They covered every subject you could possibly imagine except for the one which really mattered. I put the question to the imam at the university mosque. He made an excuse and left. Then a brother who had overheard my impertinent question to the imam came over and said: I have a tafsir of la ilaha illa Allah. If you like, we could read it together. I imagined that it would be ten or twenty pages at the most. It turned out to have over 5,000 pages, in several books. It was the Risale-i Nur by Said Nursi. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Life is a manifestation of unity. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Minds should be enlightened with science, and hearts need to be illumined with religion. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Nature is a divine art; it cannot be the artist. It is a dominical book and cannot be the scribe. It is an embroidery and cannot be the embroiderer. It is a register and cannot be the accountant. It is the law and cannot be the power. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

People who do not recognize their Owner and discover their Master are miserable and bewildered. But those who do, and then take refuge in His Mercy and rely on His Power, see this desolate world transformed into a place of rest and felicity, a place of exchange for the Hereafter. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Practice the brotherhood, love, and cooperation insistently enjoined by hundreds of Qur’anic verses and traditions of the Prophet! – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Sin penetrates to the heart, darkens and hardens it until it extinguishes the light of belief. Each sin has a path that leads to unbelief. Unless that sin is swiftly obliterated by seeking God’s forgiveness, it grows from a worm into a snake that gnaws at the heart. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Some sciences need mutual support and assistance to develop. The majority of these are physical sciences. Mutual support has almost no use in other disciplines, such as attainment of intuitive knowledge of God or spiritual progress. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Something theoretical in the past may become evident and established in the present or in the future. It is a self-evident fact that creation has an innate tendency towards perfection, and it is through this that creation is bound to the law of development or gradual perfection. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Tahir Pasha assigned me a room when I was staying in his residence, and every night before sleeping, I would spend around three hours going over the books I had memorized. It would take me three months to go through the lot. Thanks be to God, all those works became steps ascending to the truths of the Qur’an. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The All-Wise Maker attaches hundreds of instances of wisdom to each of the beings in the palace of the universe and equips them to perform hundreds of duties. To all trees He bestows instances of wisdom to the number of its fruits and gives duties to the number of its flowers. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The beauty of a finely worked object points to the beauty of the craftsmanship. The beauty of the craftsmanship points to the beauty of the name which was the source of the craftsmanship. The beauty of the name of the craftsman’s art points to the beauty of the craftsman’s attributes manifested in that art. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The beauty of man’s being, fashioned as he is in the fairest of forms, demonstrates the existence of the Maker, while at the same time the fact that, together with his comprehensive abilities, lodged in that fairest of forms, he soon declines and dies, demonstrates the existence of the resurrection. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The divine wisdom which requires a division of labor has sown different abilities and tendencies in human nature and has enabled human beings to carry out the duty of establishing sciences and developing technology. The fulfillment of this duty is obligatory upon humanity as a whole, though not on every individual. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The ever-renewed instances of beauty and fairness passing over the faces of the beings in the universe show that they are shadows of the manifestations of an Eternal Beauteous One. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The fact that there is a unity in everything demonstrates that they are the works and artefacts of a single being. The universe is like a rosebud swathed in a thousand veils of unity. Or it is a single macroanthropos dressed in unities to the number of Divine Names and universal Divine works. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The fault in suffering such torment is his, for his heart’s boundless capacity to love was given so that he might direct it toward One possessing an infinite undying beauty. By misusing it and spending it on transitory beings, he has done wrong and suffers the punishment for his fault through the pain of separation. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The Giver of Existence is Eternally Existent; there is no harm, therefore, in the passing of beings, for the things that are loved continue to exist through the continuance of the One Who gave them existence, the Necessary Existent. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The heart does not derive pure pleasure from what is impermanent. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The inanimate, lifeless cloud that resembles carded cotton has of course no knowledge of us, when it comes to our aid, it is not because it takes pity on us. It cannot appear and disappear without receiving orders. Rather it acts in accordance with the orders of a most powerful and compassionate commander. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The life of the hereafter is the outcome of all this world. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The lure and attraction in the conscience, which is the essential nature of conscious beings, is felt through the appeal of a drawing truth. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The magnificent cosmos is a palace that has the sun and the moon as its lamps and the stars as its candles; time is like a rope or ribbon hung within it, on to which the Glorious Creator each year threads a new world. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The mirror to the beautiful is beautiful. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The origin of all revolutions and corruption, and the spur and source of all base morals are just two sayings: The First Saying: ‘So long as I’m full, what is it to me if others die of hunger?’ The Second Saying: ‘You suffer hardship so that I can live in ease; you work so that I can eat.’ – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The purest joy for the human spirit and the sheerest delight for man’s heart are the rapture of the spirit contained within the love of God. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The Qur’an, the universe, and humanity are three kinds of manifestations of one truth. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The Qur’an, throughout all of its verses, aims mainly to establish and confirm four basic, universal truths: the existence and Oneness of the Maker of the universe; Prophethood; bodily Resurrection; and worship and justice. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The raising to life of all animate beings at the resurrection of the dead can be no more difficult for Divine Power than restoring to life a fly in the spring, heavy with the death-stained sleep of winter. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The signs, proofs, and evidences of Divine unity are incalculable. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The transparency of a metaphor displays the glint of truth. But if a metaphor is taken for a reality, it then becomes dense and masks the truth it is meant to display. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The truth cannot be deceptive, and one who sees it cannot be deceived. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

There has been no persecution I have not tasted, no oppression I have not suffered. I neither care for Paradise nor fear Hell. If I see my nation’s belief secured, I will not even care about burning in Hell, for while my body is burning, my heart will be as if in a rose garden. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

There is only one remedy for extirpating the First Saying, and that is the obligatory payment of Alms giving. While the remedy for the Second is the prohibition of usury and interest. Qur’anic justice stands at the door of the world and says to usury and interest: “No entry! It is forbidden! You don’t have the right to enter here!” Mankind did not heed the command, and received a severe blow. So it must heed it before it receives one even more severe! – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Those who are greatly occupied in physical or material matters lack sufficient knowledge or have only superficial understanding of spiritual matters. Therefore, such people’s opinions and judgments concerning spiritual matters carry no weight. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Those who attend to the good side of everything contemplate the good. Those who contemplate the good enjoy life. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Time demonstrates that Paradise is not cheap and that Hell is not futile. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

What agent is there other than the Creator of the heavens and earth who can know whatever occurs in our heart, down to its most subtle and secret thoughts, and illuminate the future for us by establishing the Hereafter, saving us from the countless suffocating waves of the world? – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

When I was ten years old, I had great pride in myself, which sometimes even took the form of boasting and self-praise; although I myself did not want to, I used to assume the air of someone undertaking some great work and mighty act of heroism. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Worry is itself an illness, since worry is an accusation against Divine Wisdom, a criticism of Divine Mercy. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The Spiritual Seeds of Truths

A beautiful woman entering a gathering of men awakens hypocrisy, rivalry, and envy. That is to say, the exposure of women led to the unveiling of bad morals in civilized man. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

A general disaster results from the error of the majority. Disaster is the result of crime, and the introduction to reward. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

A learned guide should be a sheep, not a bird. A sheep gives its lamb milk, while a bird gives its chick regurgitated food. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

A person who sees the good in things has good thoughts. And he who has good thoughts receives pleasure from life. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

A tarnished, matchless diamond is always superior to a piece of glistening glass. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

An actual effect has not been given to causes, for Divine Unity and Glory require it to be thus. Only, in the outer aspect of things, causes are a veil to the Hand of Power; and this, Divine Dignity and Grandeur require, so that in the superficial view the Hand of Power should not be seen to be directly in contact with lowly things. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

An infinite power sufficient to create all the universe is necessary to create a single point and set it in its place. For every letter of this Mighty Book of the Universe, and particularly all its living letters, has a face looking to all the sentences, and an eye that beholds them.

Anyone who is capable may make interpretations of the Law for his own self; but he cannot make the Law. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Before entering the mouth and disappearing down the throat, a mouthful worth one a penny and one worth a dime are the same. There is only a few seconds’ difference in the mouth. To raise the price from one to ten in order to gratify and please the sense of taste, which is like an inspector and doorkeeper, is most prodigal and wasteful. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Beings are visible through light, and their existence is known through life. Both are revealers. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Definite benefits should not be sacrificed for imaginary harms. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Degrees in heat occur through the intervention of cold; the degrees of beauty occur through the intervention of ugliness. The Pre-Eternal Power is essential, necessary, and inherent. Impotence cannot penetrate it; there can be no degrees it in; everything is equal in relation to it. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Distress teaches vice. Despair is the source of misguidance; and darkness of heart, the source of distress of the spirit. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Divine Power has many mirrors, each more subtle and transparent than the last; they vary from water to air, and air to ether, and ether to the World of Similitudes; from the World of Similitudes to the World of Spirits, and even to time, and to thought. A single word in the mirror of the air becomes millions of words. The Pen of Power writes this mystery of reproduction in truly wondrous manner. The reflection contains either its identity or its identity together with its nature. The images of dense beings are moving but dead. While the images of a luminous spirit in their own mirrors are living and linked with it; even if they are not identical, they are not other than it. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Embroidering meaningless things is to mislead simple minds. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Fame also ascribes to man what is not his. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Favor greater than Divine favor is not favor. Everything has to be described as it is. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Fear and weakness encourage outside influences. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Forgetfulness is also a bounty. It allows one to suffer the pains of only one day, and causes the rest to be forgotten. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

He who created the eye of the mosquito is the one who created the sun. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

If doubt in the matters of belief destroys one, or even a hundred, evidences, it does not harm what is posited; for there are hundreds of evidences. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

If knowledge lacks the insight of the heart, it is ignorance. Taking the part of something is one thing, belief is something else. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

If metaphors fall from the hands of learning into those of ignorance, they are transformed into their literal meanings, opening the door to superstition. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

If the community is not one and a whole, undivided number, addition makes smaller, like multiplying fractions. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

If the laws of government are not combined with the principles of wisdom, and the bonds of force not combined with the laws of truth, they will not be fruitful among the mass of the people. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

If the light of thought is not illuminated with the light of the heart and blended with it, it is darkness and breeds tyranny. If the white of the eye, which resembles day, was not together with its black pupil, which resembles night, the eye would not be the eye; it would be unseeing. Similarly, if the black core of the heart is not present in white thought, it lacks insight. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

If there is no imagined goal, or if it is forgotten or pretended to be forgotten, thoughts perpetually revolve around the ‘I’. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

If there were no Paradise, Hell would not be torment. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

If unanimity concerning good leads to conflict concerning what is better, then sometimes good is better than the better; right is truer than what is truer. Everyone should say about his own way that “It is right,” he should not say “it is the only right way.” Or he should say, “it is good,” but he should not say “it is the only good way.” – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Impotence should not be resorted to in things for which a solution may be found, while for things for which there is no solution, punishment should not be resorted to. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

In every calamity is a degree of bounty, like a degree of heat. Greater calamities should be thought of and the degree of bounty in the small one noted, and God should be thanked. For if the calamity is blown up, it will grow; and if it is worried over, it will double; the image, the imagining, in the heart will be transformed into reality; and that will pound the heart as well. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

In society as a whole, everyone has a window, known as rank, through which to see and be seen. If the window is higher than his stature, a person will grow taller through arrogance; and if it is lower than his stature, he will bow down through modesty so to see and be seen at that level. The measure of greatness in man is smallness, that is, modesty. The scale of smallness is bigness; that is, arrogance. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

In the view of Power, sustenance is as important as life. Power brings into existence, Divine Determining clothes in form, Divine favor nurtures. Life is a summary, a specified product and is apparent. Sustenance is not a summary; it is gradual and widespread, and causes thought. There is no death from hunger, for death occurs before the food stored up in the body in the form of fat is exhausted. That is to say, illness resulting from the giving up of habit kills, not lack of sustenance. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

It is the sacredness of the authority more than proof that drives the mass of the people to conform. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Just as there is obedience and rebellion in the face of the commands of the Shari’a, so too there is obedience and rebellion in the face of the creative commands in the universe. With regard to the first, the reward and punishment are mostly in the hereafter, while with the second, they are mostly in this world. For example, the reward of patience is victory; the punishment for idleness is poverty; the reward of effort is wealth, and the reward of constancy, triumph. Justice without equality is not justice. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Life is a manifestation of Unity; Unity is also its consequence. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Life is a sort of manifestation of Unity within multiplicity, and therefore leads to unity. Life makes one thing the owner of everything. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Materialism is a spiritual plague, which has infected man with a fearsome fever, causing him to be visited by Divine wrath. The more the ability to inculcate and criticize expands, so does that plague spread. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Mutual resemblance is the cause of contradiction; congruity is the basis of solidarity; smallness of character is the source of arrogance; weakness is the source of pride; impotence is the source of opposition; and curiosity is the teacher of knowledge. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Nature resembles a printing press, not the Printer. It is embroidery, not the Embroiderer. It is passive, not active. It is a pattern, not a source. It is an order, and not the Orderer. It is a law, not a Power. It is a code of laws proceeding from a will, not an external reality. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Non-acceptance is confused with the acceptance of non-being. The evidence for non-acceptance is the absence of established proof. The acceptance of non-being requires proof of non-being. One is doubt while the other is denial. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Obduracy is this: if Satan assists someone, he calls him “an angel,” and calls down blessings on him. But if among his opponents he encounters an angel, he calls him “a Satan who has changed his clothes,” and curses him. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

One grain of truth consumes a stack of lies. One grain of reality is superior to a stack of illusions. Everything you say should be true, but it is not right to say everything true. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

One who does not have the strength to raise and turn the earth and all the stars and suns as though they were beads of prayer beads cannot lay claim to creating anything in the universe. For everything is tied to everything else. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Our globe resembles a living being; it displays the signs of life. If it were to be reduced to the size of an egg, would it not become a sort of animal? Or if a microbe were enlarged to the size of the globe, would it not resemble it? If it has life, it has a spirit too. If the world was reduced to the size of man, and the stars made like the particles and substance of his being, would that not also be a living conscious being? God has many such animals. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Politics, which revolves around benefit, is savagery. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Since by nature man is noble, he seeks the truth. Sometimes he encounters the false, but supposing it to be the truth preserves it in his heart. Then, when delving into reality, without his willing it, misguidance strikes him on the head; supposing it to be reality, he plunges his head into it. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Since the sun shakes itself in its axial rotation, its fruits do not fall; whereas if it did not shake itself, the planets would fall and be scattered. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

So long as honor and good things are to be obtained from a thing, they offer it to the upper classes, but if it is a bad thing, they divide it among the ordinary people. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

So long as it remains unknown who are the saints among men, which moment prayers are accepted on Fridays, which night in Ramadhan is the Night of Power, and which among the Divine Names is the Greatest Name, other things retain their value and importance is given to them. Twenty years of doubtful life is preferable to a thousand years’ life the end of which is specified. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

So long as the enemy of an enemy remains his enemy, he is a friend; while so long as the friend of an enemy remains his friend, he is an enemy. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Solidarity in a society results in tranquility in all its activities, while mutual envy causes all its activities to come to a standstill. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Some conditions are such that a small act raises man to the highest of the high, while others are such that a small action reduces him to the lowest of the low. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Someone who follows his goal by an illicit path is usually punished by receiving the opposite of what he intended. The recompense for illicit love, like love for Europe, is the cruel enmity of the beloved. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Spirit is a law possessing external existence, a conscious law. Like the stable and enduring laws of creation, spirit comes from the World of the Divine Command and the attribute of Will. Divine Power clothes it an existence decked out with senses. He makes a subtle, flowing being the shell to that jewel. Existent spirit is the brother of the conceivable law. They are both enduring and come from the World of the Divine Command. If Pre-Eternal Power had clothed the laws governing in the species of beings in external existence, they would have been spirits. And if the spirit banishes consciousness, it still would be an undying law. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Tell a bad man, “You are good, you are good,” and it is not unheard of that he will become good. And tell a good man “You are bad, you are bad,” and it is not rare for. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Temporary pains should be smiled on rather than temporary pleasure being smiled on, and should be welcomed. For past pleasures cause one to say: “Alas!”, and “Alas!” is the interpreter of a concealed pain. While past pains cause one to say: “Oh!”, and “Oh!” tells of a permanent pleasure and bounty. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The dignity of the weak before the strong becomes arrogance in the strong; while the modesty of the strong before the weak becomes abasement in the weak. The seriousness of someone in authority in their office is dignity, and his humility is abasement. While his seriousness in his house is haughtiness, and his humility, modesty. If an individual is on his own, then his tolerance and self-sacrifice are good acts. But if he is more than one, they are treachery and inauspicious. Someone should swallow his pride in his own name and not be boastful, but he may boast in the name of the nation and should not swallow his pride. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The essential nature of beings does not lie. The inclination to grow in a seed declares: “I shall sprout and produce fruit!” It speaks the truth. In an egg is the desire for life; it says: “I shall be a hen!” and this comes about, with Divine permission. It speaks the truth. Due to the inclination to freeze, a handful of water says: “I shall take up more space!” and unyielding iron cannot give it the lie; the rightness of its words splits the iron. These inclinations are the manifestations of the creative commands proceeding from Divine Will. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The essentials and incontestable matters of religion, which form ninety-nine per cent, are each diamond pillars, while the controversial matters which are open to interpretation form only ten per cent. Ninety diamond pillars may not be put under the protection of ten gold pillars. Books and interpretations should be telescopes for observing the Holy Book; they should be mirrors; not shadows or deputies! – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The existence of something is dependent on the existence of all its parts. As for non-existence, since it occurs though non-existence of one part, a weak man supports destruction in order to demonstrate his power; he acts negatively instead of positively. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The inner dimensions of things, where Divine Power has its connection, are transparent and pure. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The lure and attraction in the conscience, which is the essential nature of conscious beings, is felt through the appeal of a drawing truth.

The Manifest World is a lace veil strewn over the Worlds of the Unseen. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The most wretched, distressed, and suffering of men is the man with no work. For idleness is the cousin of non-existence, while striving is the life of existence and the waking state of life. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The one who ordered the stomach of a flea is also the one who ordered the solar system. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The origin of all revolutions and corruption, and the spur and source of all base morals are just two sayings:
The First Saying: “So long as I’m full, what is it to me if others die of hunger?”
The Second Saying: “You suffer hardship so that I can live in ease; you work so that I can eat.”

There is only one remedy for extirpating the First Saying, and that is the obligatory payment of Alms giving. While the remedy for the Second is the prohibition of usury and interest. Qur’anic justice stands at the door of the world and says to usury and interest: “No entry! It is forbidden! You don’t have the right to enter here!” Mankind did not heed the command, and received a severe blow. So it must heed it before it receives one even more severe!

War between nations and states is relinquishing its place to war between the classes of mankind. For just as man does not want to be a slave, so he does not want to be a laborer. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The past and calamities should be considered with regard to Divine Determining, while the future and sins from the point of view of responsibility before God. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The raising to life of all animate beings at the resurrection of the dead can be no more difficult for Divine Power than restoring to life a fly in the spring, heavy with the death-stained sleep of winter. For Pre-Eternal Power is essential; it does not change; impotence cannot penetrate it; obstacles cannot intervene in it; there can be no degrees in it; everything is the same in relation to it. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The remedy for one ill person may be poison for another. If a remedy exceeds its limit, it is the cause of ills. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The revival of religion is the revival of the nation. The life of religion is the light of life. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The sun’s image, which is the effulgence of its manifestation, displays the same identity on the surface of the sea and in all its droplets. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

The words and deeds of the Messenger are the source of life and inspirer of reality. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

There is such miraculousness in the universe’s compilation that if to suppose the impossible all natural causes possessed will and the power to act, they would still prostrate in utter impotence before such miraculousness, exclaiming: “Glory be unto You! We have no power; indeed You are the Mighty, the Wise!” – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Those who seek everything in materiality know only what their eyes see, and such eyes are blind in spiritual matters. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Through need, and especially through hunger, the Creator’s Power has reined in foremost man, and all the animals, and put them in order. Also, He saved the world from anarchy, and making need the master of civilization, ensured progress. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Time has shown that Paradise is not cheap, and neither is Hell unnecessary. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

To ‘leave it to others’ in planning the preliminaries of a matter is laziness, while in awaiting the outcome it is reliance on God. Resignation with the fruits of one’s labor and with fate is contentment, and strengthens the wish to strive. Whereas making do with what exists is to lack enterprise. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

To show friendliness towards a hungry beast does not excite its compassion, but its hunger. Both its fangs and its claws will want their rent! – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Tyranny has donned the hat of justice; treachery has clothed itself in the garment of patriotism; holy war has been given the name of rebellion; captivity has been called freedom! Opposites have exchanged forms! – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Unfortunate truths become worthless in worthless hands. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

What gives life to people is hope, while what kills them is despair. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

When men become amiable through following their fancies, women become masculine by being impudent. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

While the virtues of those known by the world as the upper classes should be the cause of modesty and humility, they have lead to oppression and arrogance. And while the poverty and powerlessness of the poor and common people should be the cause of compassion and bounty, they have resulted in captivity and condemnation. – Bediuzzaman Said Nursi