Abu Nuʿaym said: Sufyān would lightly apply dye whenever he entered the bathhouse.

Qabīṣah reported: Sufyān had a playful streak; I used to lag behind him, afraid his banter would leave me speechless.

Al-Fasawī transmitted from ʿĪsā ibn Muḥammad that Sufyān would laugh until he fell onto his back and stretched out his legs.

Zayd ibn Abī al-Zarqāʾ said: Sufyān would say to the hadith students, “Move to the front, O assembly of the weak.”

Yaḥyā ibn Yamān related: I heard Sufyān say to a man, “Come closer to me; had you been wealthy I would not have invited you.”

Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb remarked: I never saw princes or the affluent more humbled than they were in Sufyān’s gathering.

Ibn Mahdī said: People allege that Sufyān used to drink nabīdh (a mildly fermented beverage). I testify that when a remedy was prescribed for him I asked, “Shall we bring you nabīdh?” He replied, “No—bring me honey mixed with water (1).”

Khalaf ibn Tamīm recounted: I saw al-Thawrī in Mecca, surrounded by a throng, and he exclaimed, “Indeed, to Allah we belong; I fear Allah may have forsaken this community if it now has need of someone like me.” I also heard him say, “Were it not that I would be treated contemptuously, I would live among a people who do not know me.”

More than one narrator conveyed that Sufyān was unassuming in his dress, wearing thread-bare clothes.

Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allah al-ʿIjlī said: Sufyān once hired himself out as a camel-driver on the road to Mecca. They told him to bake bread for them, but when it came out poorly the camel-driver struck him. When they reached Mecca, the camel-driver entered and found the people gathered around Sufyān. He asked who the man was, and they replied, “That is Sufyān.”