Mujāhid ibn Mūsā said, “I heard Ibn ʿUyaynah say, ‘I never wrote anything down until I had first committed it to memory.’

Ibn al-Mubārak related: Sufyān al-Thawrī was asked about Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah and replied, ‘He is one of the truly singular men (1); how extraordinary he is!’

Ibn al-Madīnī said: “Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān told me, ‘None of my teachers is still alive except Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, and he has been an imam for forty years.’”

ʿAlī said, “I heard Bishr ibn al-Mu faḍḍal say, ‘There is no one left on the face of the earth who resembles Ibn ʿUyaynah.’”

Harmalah ibn Yaḥyā reported that Ibn ʿUyaynah once showed him a loaf of barley bread and said, “This has been my food for sixty years.”

Al-Humaydī said that he heard Sufyān remark, “These inkwells never enter a man’s house without making his family and children miserable.”

Sufyān once asked a man, “What is your profession?” The man answered, “The pursuit of hadith.” Sufyān said, “Then give your family the glad tidings of poverty.”

ʿAlī ibn al-Jaʿd transmitted from Ibn ʿUyaynah that he said, “Whoever is granted an increase in intellect will see a decrease in his livelihood.”

Sunayd ibn Dāwūd transmitted from Ibn ʿUyaynah that he said, “If a person’s sin is driven by desire, then have hope for him; but if it is driven by arrogance, then fear for him. Adam sinned out of desire and was forgiven, whereas Iblīs sinned out of pride and was cursed.”