“The more inwardly pure a man is, the higher his rank and the nobler his station, so much he assiduously labors with sincere performance and a great fear.”

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2004), p. 264

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Prophet

Source: The Enemy Stars (1959), Chapter 1 (p. 4)

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.78, p. 3.
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, Religious

Address at the Rameswaram Temple on Real Worship
Context: It is in love that religion exists and not in ceremony, in the pure and sincere love in the heart. Unless a man is pure in body and mind, his coming into a temple and worshipping Shiva is useless. The prayers of those that are pure in mind and body will be answered by Shiva, and those that are impure and yet try to teach religion to others will fail in the end. External worship is only a symbol of internal worship; but internal worship and purity are the real things. Without them, external worship would be of no avail. Therefore you must all try to remember this.
People have become so degraded in this Kali Yuga that they think they can do anything, and then they can go to a holy place, and their sins will be forgiven. If a man goes with an impure mind into a temple, he adds to the sins that he had already, and goes home a worse man than when he left it.

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 108.
Context: There are two ways of defending a castle; one by shutting yourself up in it, and guarding every loop-hole; the other by making it an open centre of operations from which all the surrounding country may be subdued. Is not the last the truest safety? Jesus was never guarding Himself, but always invading the lives of others with His holiness. There never was such an open life as His; and yet the force with which His character and love flowed out upon the world kept back, more strongly than any granite wall of prudent caution could have done, the world from pressing in on Him. His life was like an open stream which keeps the sea from flowing up into it by the eager force with which it flows down into the sea. He was so anxious that the world should be saved that therein was His salvation from the world. He labored so to make the world pure that He never even had to try to be pure Himself.

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.12
Context: It is of great advantage that man should know his station, and not imagine that the whole universe exists only for him. We hold that the universe exists because the Creator wills it so; that mankind is low in rank as compared with the uppermost portion of the universe, viz., with the spheres and the stars; but, as regards the angels, there cannot be any real comparison between man and angels, although man is the highest of all beings on earth; i. e., of all the beings formed of the four elements.

Vol. I; VIII
Lacon (1820)