Ahmad ibn Salamah informed us in writing, from al-Labbān; al-Haddād told us; Abu Nuʿaym narrated; Ahmad ibn Jaʿfar ibn Salam related; al-Abbār transmitted; ʿAbd al-Malik al-Maymūnī narrated, saying: I heard Yaʿlā ibn ʿUbayd say:
Sufyān remarked, “I sometimes attend a banquet, having no desire for nabīdh, yet I drink it so that people may see me.”

Al-Muḥāribī said, “I heard al-Thawrī say to a youth whom he noticed standing in the first row, ‘Have you reached puberty?’ If the boy answered, ‘No,’ he would say, ‘Then move back.’”

Yūsuf ibn Asbāṭ related: “I heard al-Thawrī say, ‘Nothing breaks the back of Satan more thoroughly than the phrase: Lā ilāha illā Allāh (There is no god but Allah).’”

He was asked, “What is renunciation (zuhd)?” He replied, “The fall of social status.”

It is also reported from him that he said, “I may meet a man I loathe, but when he greets me with, ‘How are you this morning?’ my heart softens toward him. Then what of those whose food I eat?”

Wakīʿ transmits from Sufyān: “Were certitude (yaqīn) firmly planted in the heart, it would take wing—out of joy, or sorrow, or longing for Paradise, or fear of the Fire.”

Qutaybah said, “Had it not been for Sufyān, scrupulous piety would have perished.”

Ibn al-Mubārak reported: “Sufyān said to me, ‘Beware of seeking notoriety; I have never met anyone who did not caution against it.’”

Al-Firyābī related: “Sufyān came to Jerusalem and stayed three days, then kept watch on the frontier at ʿAsqalān for forty days, and I accompanied him to Mecca.”

Ahmad ibn Yūnus said, “I heard Sufyān declare, ‘I know of nothing better for a man than to enter a hole in the ground.’”

ʿAtāʾ ibn Muslim narrated: “Al-Thawrī told me, ‘When you are in Syria, mention the merits of ʿAlī; and when you are in Kufa, mention the merits of Abu Bakr and ʿUmar.’”