He transmitted from Muḥill ibn Khalīfa, Sufyān al-Thawrī, and Zāʾida ibn Qudāma. Among those who narrated from him were al-Musayyab ibn Wāḍiḥ, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Khubayq, and others. He settled on the frontier, standing guard in ribāt.

Al-Musayyab said, “I asked him about zuhd (ascetic renunciation). He replied, ‘That you renounce even what is lawful; as for the unlawful, if you commit it He will punish you.’”

Yūsuf was asked, “What is the utmost degree of humility?” He answered, “That you never meet anyone without deeming him superior to yourself.”

He also said, “The truthful person possesses three traits: sweetness, charm, and awe.”

And he said, “Hearts were created as dwellings for remembrance, but they have become dwellings for desires. Nothing erases those desires except an unsettling fear or an anxious longing. To renounce leadership is harder than to renounce the world.”

Ibn Khubayq related: “I said to Ibn Asbāṭ, ‘Why do you not allow Ibn al-Mubārak to come and greet you?’ He answered, ‘I fear that I would not discharge his due, though I love him.’”

Yūsuf also said, “When you see a man exulting in vanity and pride, do not admonish him, for admonition has no foothold in him. For forty years, whenever anything caused the slightest misgiving in my breast, I abandoned it.”

Shuʿayb ibn Harb declared, “I do not place anyone ahead of Yūsuf ibn Asbāṭ.”