“All spiritual journeys are martyrdoms”

Ibn Taymiyyah, Diseases of the heart and their cures https://www.amazon.com/Diseases-Hearts-Their-Cures-Taymiyyah/dp/0953647633

Beating the drums of hope and faith (2004)
Context: I feel for, and identify with, individuals on their spiritual journeys — whether those journeys are hard or smooth. That is why I write about the young man who parties all night and finds it hard to get along with his parents; I sing about the Muslim girl murdered by her father and step mother; I write about the death of a close relative and the struggle of dealing with that parting; I write about conflict within marriage; difficulties being a good parent; religious hypocrisy; consumerism; sexual abuse; religious narrow-mindedness; these are all struggles that are very real within our community. Even if I have not felt these struggles first hand, seeing others around me experience such tests does effect me… the social repercussions of these struggles effect us all one way or another.

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2004), p. 80

זכור תמיד: השמחה איננה עניין שולי במסעך הרוחני – היא חיונית
Z'khor tamid: ha'simha einena 'inyan shuli b'masa'akh ha'ruhani - hi hyunit.
Attributed

Source: The Unforeseen Wilderness: Kentucky's Red River Gorge

Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life http://www.spiritualbee.com/spiritual-book-by-tagore/ (1916)
Context: The human soul is on its journey from the law to love, from discipline to liberation, from the moral plane to the spiritual. Buddha preached the discipline of self-restraint and moral life; it is a complete acceptance of law. But this bondage of law cannot be an end by itself; by mastering it thoroughly we acquire the means of getting beyond it. It is going back to Brahma, to the infinite love, which is manifesting itself through the finite forms of law.

2000s, AARP magazine interview (2008)

Source: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy