“People are in greater need of knowledge than of food and drink, for a person needs food once or twice a day, but he needs knowledge with every breath.”

Ahmad ibn Hanbal (164–241 AH / 780–855 CE) was the imam who held out under interrogation and flogging rather than concede a point of creed, and the comparison here is characteristic of how he ranked things. The saying is transmitted in the later literature on the manners of seeking knowledge; the wording given here is the one that circulates most.