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Idries Shah Quotes
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Prescribing hard work for the soft, or easy work for the hardy, is generally nonsense. What is always needed in any aim is right effort, right time, right people, right materials.
Idries Shah
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People who speak or act in an ordinary fashion are most likely to be those who have been the recipients of higher experiences. But because they do not rage around, wild-eyed, people think that they are very ordinary folk and therefore not aware of anything unknown to the general run of man.
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You have not forgotten to remember; You have remembered to forget. But people can forget to forget. That is just as important as remembering to remember - and generally more practical.
Idries Shah
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Materialism, attachment to things of the world, includes pride. Many religious people suffer from pride: taking pleasure or even delight in being good, or religious.
Idries Shah
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If, from time to time, you give up expectation, you will be able to perceive what it is you are getting.
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Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun?
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The sufis believe that they can experience something more complete.
Idries Shah
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If you want to make an ordinary man happy, or think that he is happy, give him money, power, flattery, gifts, honours. If you want to make a wise man happy - improve yourself!
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The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk.
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To be obsessed by the idea of freedom, for instance, is itself a form of slavery. Such people are in the chains of the hope of freedom, and are therefore able to do little else than struggle with them.
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It is not only a matter of not caring who knows - it is also a matter of knowing who cares.
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Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.
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To 'see both sides' of a problem is the surest way to prevent its complete solution. Because there are always more than two sides.
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If you are uninterested in what I say, there's an end to it. If you like what I say, please try to understand which previous influences have made you like it. If you like some of the things I say, and dislike others, you could try to understand why. If you dislike all I say, why not try to find out what formed your attitude?
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Anyone can see that an ass laden with books remains a donkey. A human being laden with the undigested results of a tussle with thoughts and books, however, still passes for wise.
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There is a Persian proverb: 'To test that which has been tested is ignorance.' To try to test something without the means of testing is even worse.
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Please, not again what you studied, how long you spent at it, how many books you wrote, what people thought of you - but: what did you learn?
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Knowledge is not gained, it is there all the time. It is the "veils" which have to be dissolved in the mind.
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Enemies are often former or potential friends who have been denied - or think that they have been denied - something.
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History is not usually what has happened. History is what some people have thought to be significant.
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Learn to be as analytical about things of which you are credulous as you are of those which you criticise.
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Right time, right place, right people equals success. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong people equals most of the real human history.
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It is the message, not the man, which is important to the Sufis.
Idries Shah
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The human being, whether he realises it or not, is trusting someone or something every moment of the day.
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A certain person may have, as you say, a wonderful presence; I do not know. What I do know is that he has a perfectly delightful absence.
Idries Shah
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Quote of the day
Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.
Dorothy L. Sayers
Idries Shah
Creative Commons
Born:
June 16, 1924
Died:
November 23, 1996
(aged 72)
Known for:
The Sufis (1964)
The Way of the Sufi (1968)
Tales of the Dervishes (1967)
Caravan of Dreams
Most used words:
people
time
knowledge
man
person
happy
ordinary
wrong
history
forget
effort
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