Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad al-Shāfiʿī said: I asked Ibn al-Mubārak, “Have you ever seen anyone like Sufyān al-Thawrī?”
He replied, “Did he himself ever see anyone like himself?”

Al-Khuraybī remarked, “I have never seen a transmitter of hadith better than al-Thawrī.”

Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd said, “What I wrote from Sufyān on the authority of al-Aʿmash is dearer to me (1) than what I wrote directly from al-Aʿmash.”

Abū Usāmah observed, “If someone tells you that he has seen with his own eyes anyone comparable to Sufyān, do not believe him.”

Sharīk declared, “We regard Sufyān as a proof from Allah against His servants.”

Abū al-Aḥwaṣ said: I heard Sufyān say, “I wish I could come out of this matter even, with nothing for me and nothing against me.”

Abū Usāmah also related that he heard Sufyān say:
“The pursuit of hadith is not a provision for death; rather, it is an ailment that occupies a man.”

I (the author) remark: He says this even though he told al-Khuraybī, “Nothing is more beneficial to people than hadith!”

Abū Dāwūd said: I heard al-Thawrī say, “There is nothing I fear might cast me into the Fire except hadith.”

It is reported from Sufyān that he said, “I wish I had read the Quran and stopped there, never moving on to anything else.”

He also said, “Whoever increases in knowledge increases in pain; had I not known, my grief would have been lighter.”

And he said, “I wish my knowledge could be erased from my heart. Will I not be asked tomorrow about every hadith I transmitted, ‘What did you mean by it?’”

Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān said, “Al-Thawrī had been overcome by—”