Q0319

Al-Ghazali

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Certainty is not attained by imitation, but by tasting (direct experience).
Thinker Al-Ghazali
School Sufism
Source Deliverance from Error (related)
Theme Certainty
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Deliverance from Error (related), within the tradition of Sufism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of certainty, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Al-Ghazali's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Al-Ghazali. (n.d.). Certainty is not attained by imitation, but by tasting (direct experience). In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0319

MLA: Al-Ghazali. “Certainty is not attained by imitation, but by….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0319.

Chicago: Al-Ghazali. “Certainty is not attained by imitation, but by….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0319.

Same thinker

More from Al-Ghazali

  1. Knowledge without action is vanity, and action without knowledge is madness.

All quotations by Al-Ghazali

Same theme

More on certainty

  1. I think, therefore I am.
  2. The quest for certainty…has always been a quest for a peace that is assured.
  3. Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.
  4. I am, I exist—whenever it is uttered by me, or conceived in the mind, it is necessarily true.
  5. The quest for certainty…is a quest for a peace which is assured.

Browse the certainty theme