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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“At the resurrection, there will be the return of spirits to their bodies, the revivification of the bodies, and the remaking of the bodies.”

“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.”

“The mirror to the beautiful is beautiful.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I can live without bread, but I can't live without freedom.”

“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.”

“The signs, proofs, and evidences of Divine unity are incalculable.”

“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.”

“Time has shown that Paradise is not cheap, and neither is Hell unnecessary.”

“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.”

“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?”

“Establish with all of your powers a union with your fellows and brothers in religion that is stronger than the union of the worldly!”

“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.”