Less is more

There is a saying – ‘never give a man a microphone or a woman a telephone. Once on it they can’t get off it.’

And it’s so true. In the case of us blokes I’ve hardly found any speaker, lecturer or ‘maulana’ who stuck to their time allocation or managed to give a short, sharp and sweet talk. Yet we find that by all accounts the Prophet never gave a talk for longer than 20 minutes. Now there’s a bit of Sunnah that we could all do with seeing more of.

In fact recent research suggests that the attention span of the average individual in a monologue situation is no more than 20 minutes. About 10 more minutes may be tolerated, but after that you really have lost them.

When I think about all the talks I’ve heard, I find that it was those small quotes or perspectives that stuck to my mind. It’s amazing how much can be said in just a few words. I’ve actually been collecting a lot of quotes lately and here are three of my favourites:

‘Pray as though everything depended on Allah. Work as though everything depended on you’- Anon

 ‘It’s possible but not probable. There is a difference between possibility and probability’ – Sh. Nizam Yakuby

‘Today is the first day of the rest of your life’ – Anon

As I was saying, less really is more!

So let’s hear it, what’s your favourite or most memorable quote?