Doctrine offers the whole truth, first by virtue of its form, and then in regard to the capacity of the properly qualified intelligence to receive and actualize it; it lays open its content in a way that is doubtless elliptical, since it is a form, but in a way that is also total since this form is a symbol and is therefore something of what it has to communicate. [GTUFS: StationsW, Orthodoxy and Intellectuality]

Doctrine (exoteric / esoteric): A doctrine or a Path is exoteric to the degree that it is obliged to take account of individualism – which is the fruit not so much of passion itself as of the hold exerted by passion upon thought – and to veil the equation of Intellect and Self under a mythological and moral imagery, irrespective of whether a historical element is combined with that imagery or not; and a doctrine is esoteric to the degree that it communicates the very essence of our universal position, our situation between nothingness and Infinity. Esoterism is concerned with the nature of things and not merely with our human eschatology; it views the Universe not from the human standpoint but from the “standpoint” of God. [GTUFS: LSelf, Gnosis, Language of the Self]

Doctrine (limitation): A doctrinal limitation does not always denote a corresponding intellectual limitation since it can be situated on the level of mental articulation and not on that of pure intellection. [GTUFS: FormSR, Paradoxes of Spiritual Expression]

Doctrine (quintessence): When one speaks of doctrinal “quintessence,” this may mean one of two things: firstly, the loftiest and subtlest part of a doctrine, and it is in this sense that Sufis distinguish between the “husk” (qishr) and the “marrow” (lubb); and secondly, an integral doctrine envisaged in respect of its fundamental and necessary nature, and thus leaving aside all outward trappings and all superstructure. [GTUFS: SufismVQ, Preface]

Doctrine (truth): It is sometimes said that no doctrine is entirely wrong and that there is truth in everything; but this is altogether false, because, while fundamental – and thus decisive – truths can neutralize any minor errors in a doctrine, minor truths are valueless within the framework of a major error; this is why one must never glorify an error for having taught us some truth or other, nor look for truth in errors on the pretext that truth is everywhere the same – for there are important nuances here – and above all one must not reject a fundamental and comprehensive truth because of a minor error that may happen to accompany it. [GTUFS: ChristIslam, Dilemmas of Moslem Scholasticism]