ʿAlqama b. Marthad, while listing the eight eminent Successors, said:

“As for al-Hasan, we never saw anyone whose sorrow lasted longer than his; whenever we looked at him, we thought he had only just been struck by calamity. He would add: ‘We laugh, yet we do not know—perhaps Allah has already taken note of some of our deeds.’

He also said: ‘I will accept nothing from you. Woe to you, son of Adam! Have you the strength to wage war against Allah?—that is, any power to oppose Him.’

By Allah, I have seen people for whom this world was of less worth than the dust beneath their feet. I have seen others who would reach the evening (1) with nothing on hand but their day’s provision, yet one of them would say, ‘I shall not put all of this into my stomach.’ He would give part of it away in charity, although he might be hungrier for it than the one to whom he gave it (2).”

Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī said, “Had you seen al-Hasan, you would have declared that you had never in your life sat with a true jurist.”

Al-Aʿmash said, “Al-Hasan went on absorbing wisdom until he spoke nothing else.” Whenever al-Hasan was mentioned in the presence of Abū Jaʿfar al-Bāqir, he would say, “His speech resembles the speech of the prophets” (3).

Ṣāliḥ al-Murrī narrated from al-Hasan that he said, “O son of Adam, you are nothing but a number of days; whenever a day departs, part of you departs” (4).

Mubārak b. Faḍālah said, “I heard al-Hasan say: ‘Death has laid bare the world, leaving no joy in it for the man of sound mind’” (5).

And Thābit transmitted from him that he said, “A believer’s laughter is a moment of heedlessness in his heart” (6).