Explore the most impactful and insightful quotes and sayings by Idries Shah, and enrich your perspective with the wisdom. Share these inspiring Idries Shah quotes pictures with your friends on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or your personal blogs, completely free. Here are the top 537 Idries Shah quotes for you to read and share.

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Those who say 'I am ready to learn', or 'I am not ready to learn' are as often mistaken as they are correct in their surmise. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
Obligation to Learn
The pursuit of knowledge is obligatory on every Muslim. -- Idries Shah
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Many things which are called 'secrets' are only things withheld from people until they can understand or effectively experience them. -- Idries Shah
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Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Truthful man:
He who is, secretly, regarded by everyone as an enemy. -- Idries Shah
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If you cannot sit on a throne like a king, seize, like a tent-pitcher, the rope of the Royal tent. -- Idries Shah
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Helping others
I order you to assist any oppressed person, whether he is a Moslem or not. -- Idries Shah
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Saadi: Be a true renouncer, (zahid) and [you can even] ware satin. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
Love
Do you think you love your Creator? Love your fellow-creature first. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
Desire
Desire not the world, and God will love you. Desire not what others have, and they will love you. -- Idries Shah
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A Better Beard that Yours. 'All true devotees wear a beard,' said the Imam to his audience. 'Show me a thick and lustrous beard and I'll show you a true believer!' 'My goat has a beard far bushier and longer than yours,' replied Nasrudin. 'Does that mean he is a better Muslim than you? -- Idries Shah
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Show a man too many camels' bones,or show them to him too often,and he will not be able to recognize a camel when he comes across a live one. -- Idries Shah
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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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Remedy
Your medicine is in you, and you do not observe it. Your ailment is from yourself, and you do not register it.
Hazrat Ali -- Idries Shah
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Is your division of Understanding into Greater and Lesser common to all Sufis? Nothing which is put into words is common to all Sufis. -- Idries Shah
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Religion, for instance, cannot be accepted or rejected out of hand, until the student knows exactly what religion means. -- Idries Shah
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Imagination blocks you like a bolt on a door. Burn that bar. (Rumi) -- Idries Shah
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They say: 'Seek wisdom while you have the strength, or you may lose the strength without gaining wisdom. -- Idries Shah
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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. -- Idries Shah
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If you are 'humble', it may help you in ordinary life. If you are not, you will get nowhere in higher things. -- Idries Shah
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Neither imagine that you are false, nor lash yourself, for both may be forms of self-indulgence. -- Idries Shah
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History is not usually what has happened. History is what some people have thought to be significant. -- Idries Shah
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Many Sufis are not guides. -- Idries Shah
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Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives. -- Idries Shah
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Learning how to learn involves examining assumptions. Mulla Nasrudin tales very often fulfil this funcition. -- Idries Shah
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Ibn El-Arabi wrote, 'The Teacher is he who hears you, then unveils you to yourself -- Idries Shah
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As Ibn Arabi says: 'Absolute existence is the source of all existence'. -- Idries Shah
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Angels are the powers hidden in the faculties and organs of man -- Idries Shah
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The sight of God in woman is the most perfect of all. Ibn Arabi. -- Idries Shah
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Be a dog, but don't be a younger brother.

Proverb. -- Idries Shah
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Has it not occurred to you that, conversely, other people do not have your difficulties because they do not react as you do to what happens? -- Idries Shah
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Nobody can stand between you and knowledge if you are fit for it. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
Understanding
Speak to everyone in accordance with his degree of understanding. -- Idries Shah
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To say "yes" to the Sufi way is to say "no" to imagined escapes. -- Idries Shah
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Understanding and knowledge are completely different sensations in the realm of Truth than they are in the realm of society. -- Idries Shah
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Debating whether one trusts or not is a sign that one does not want to trust at all, and therefore is still incapable of it. -- Idries Shah
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If you forsake a path, it is because you were hoping for conviction from it. You seek conviction, not self-knowledge. -- Idries Shah
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You may have forgotten the Way:
But those who came before
Did not forget you.
Saying of Master Bahaudin Naqshband of Bokhara -- Idries Shah
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When you feel least interested in following the Way which you have entered, this may be the time when it is most appropriate for you. -- Idries Shah
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Never follow any impulse to teach, however strong it might be. The command to teach is not felt as an impulsion. -- Idries Shah
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Whoever might perfume a scorpion
Will not thereby escape its sting. Bahaudin Naqshband -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
Anger
You ask for a piece of advice. I tell you: 'Do not get angry.' He is strong who can withhold anger. -- Idries Shah
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Our heads are filled with 'knowledge', a knowledge that in some areas pre-empts our seeing anything at all. -- Idries Shah
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The union of the mind and intuition which brings about illumination, and the development which the Sufis seek, is based upon love. -- Idries Shah
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In the distorting mirror of your mind, an angel can seem to have a devil's face. -- Idries Shah
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As with any other specialisation, teaching is a vocation, open only to those who are truly capable of discharging its functions. -- Idries Shah
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At His door, what is the difference between Moslem and Christian, virtuous and guilty? At his door all are seekers and He the sought. -- Idries Shah
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An egocentric pessimist is a person who thinks he hasn't changed, but that other people are behaving worse than before. -- Idries Shah
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Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information. -- Idries Shah
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A short time in the presence of the Friends (the Sufis) is better than a hundred years' sincere, obedient dedication. -- Idries Shah
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It is necessary to note," says Rumi, "that opposite things work together, even though nominally opposed" (Fihi Ma Fihi). -- Idries Shah
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The automatism of man is overcome, in the words of Dhun'Nun, by aiming for 'being as you were, where you were, before you were'. -- Idries Shah
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Sufis are those who have expunged from their minds the human tendencies of envy and enmity. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
The Tongue
A man slips with his tongue more than with his feet. -- Idries Shah
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Unbelief and belief are both marching on His road, while both are saying, 'He is one and He has no associates'. -- Idries Shah
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To Him who has sense, a sign is enough
For the heedless, however, a thousand expositions are not enough. -- Idries Shah
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Poor greedy one, wherever he runs
He's after food, and death is after him.
(Saadi) -- Idries Shah
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To be a Sufi is to detach from fixed ideas and from preconceptions; and not to try to avoid what is your lot. -- Idries Shah
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You need not wonder whether you should have an unreliable person as a friend. An unreliable person is nobody's friend. -- Idries Shah
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Few things are more absurd than wise saws originally designed to inculcate or maintain the social needs of a society long past - when they are applied to today. -- Idries Shah
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He that is purified by love is pure; and he that is absorbed in the Beloved and hath abandoned all else is a Sufi.
Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah. -- Idries Shah
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Your medicine is in you, and you do not observe it. Your ailment is from yourself, and you do not register it. -- Idries Shah
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Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Community: Irrationals unified by hope of the impossible. -- Idries Shah
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The real generosity is when a man does something generous when nobody knows about it. -- Idries Shah
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Do not try to be humble: learn humility. -- Idries Shah
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The liar has a bad memory. -- Idries Shah
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Sufism is, in operation, pragmatic. -- Idries Shah
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The impatient man is his own enemy; he slams the door on his own progress. -- Idries Shah
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The definition of the word 'finished' is: 'This word means finished. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
Death
Die before your death. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
Practice
Who are the learned? Those who put into practice what they know. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
Tasks
Whoever makes all his tasks one task, God will help him in his other concerns. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
Objects
It is your attachment to objects which make you blind and deaf. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
Envy
Envy devours good deeds, as a fire devours fuel. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
Sleep
Sleep is the brother of death. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
Humility
Humility and courtesy are themselves a part of piety. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
Women
Women are the twin-halves of men. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
Struggle
The holy warrior is he who struggles with himself. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
Accusations
Anyone reviling a brother for a sin will not himself die before committing it. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
Reflection
The Faithful are mirrors, one to the other. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
Truth
Speaking the truth to the unjust is the best of holy wars. -- Idries Shah
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Teaching:
One hour's teaching is better than a whole night of prayer.
Saying of the Prophet -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
Oppression
When oppression exists, even the bird dies in its nest. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
Food
Nobody has eaten better food than that won by his own labour. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
Some behaviour
I am like a man who has lighted a fire, and all the creeping things have rushed to burn themselves in it. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
Distribution
God it is who gives: I am only a distributor. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
THE PEOPLE
It is the people who are God's family.
(Muhammad the Prophet) -- Idries Shah
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When you get a principle on which everyone is agreed, you get the beginning of complacency and deterioration. -- Idries Shah
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Talking about straws and camels' backs is just one way of approaching things. If you have enough camels, no backs need be broken. -- Idries Shah
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A man is deficient in understanding until he perceives that there is a whole cycle of evolution possible within himself: repeating endlessly, offering opportunities for personal development. -- Idries Shah
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A loan is the scissors of friendship.
A man's own tongue may cut his throat.
The cage has no value without the bird. -- Idries Shah
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The more wakeful a man is to the things which surround him, the more asleep is he, and his waking is worse than his sleep. -- Idries Shah
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Three things cannot be retrieved:
The arrow once sped from the bow
The word spoken in haste
The missed opportunity.
Ali, the Lion of Islam. -- Idries Shah
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Even if false gold makes a man happy:
At the mint it will be identified. -- Idries Shah
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The person that you feel yourself to be, according to the Sufis, is a false person, which has no true reality. -- Idries Shah
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A generous person may not have wisdom: but, unlike others, he has the means to gain it. -- Idries Shah
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The totality of life cannot be understood, so runs Sufi teaching, if it is studied only through the methods which we use in everyday living. -- Idries Shah
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Sufis hold that the superior experience and knowledge comes to a man or woman in exact accordance with his worth,capacity,and earning of it. -- Idries Shah
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Sufism is therefore not 'Do as I say and not as I do', or even 'Do as I do', but 'Experience and you will know'. -- Idries Shah
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Why do people always wonder whether books are any good, without wondering whether they are themselves in a state to profit from them? -- Idries Shah
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It is no accident that Sufis find that they can connect most constructively with people who are well integrated into the world, as well as having higher aims, and that those who adopt a sensible attitude towards society and life as generally known can usually absorb Sufi teachings very well indeed -- Idries Shah
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Do not think that your magic ring will work if you are not yourself Solomon. -- Idries Shah
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You call me an unbeliever. I shall therefore call you a True Believer since a lie is best met with one of similar magnitude. -- Idries Shah
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The happiness of the superficial: when a man who has lost his donkey finds it again. -- Idries Shah
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You can perceive a person's aspiration if it is genuine, because this creates a change in the emanations from such a person. -- Idries Shah
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Talent is the presence of ability and absence of understanding about the source and operation of knowledge. -- Idries Shah
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You can learn more in half an hour's direct contact with a source of knowledge (no matter the apparent reason for the contact or the subject of the transaction) than you can in years of formal effort. -- Idries Shah
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Treat this world as I do, like a wayfarer; like a horseman who stops in the shade of a tree for a time, and then moves on. -- Idries Shah
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The man who knows must discharge a function. The one who does not, cannot arrogate one to himself; he can only try to do so. -- Idries Shah
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The secret protects itself. It is found only in the spirit and practice of the Work. -- Idries Shah
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Q: How can I help myself?
A: By remembering the proverb: 'The Path is not to be found anywhere except in human service', from Saadi. -- Idries Shah
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Nothing cheap without reason. -- Idries Shah
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Certain levels of human understanding cannot be attained, it is claimed, until the brain can work in more than one way. -- Idries Shah
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It is experience which teaches, not controversy based on supposed logic and assumptions of what is likely to be true. -- Idries Shah
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Words, they say, are the food of minds. But, like other foods, they can do little by themselves. -- Idries Shah
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From a personal experience and the examination of literature, I feel that we cannot take for granted that a dialogue, without information and perhaps without understanding, is possible between any individuals or groups on all levels. So the prerequisite is information. -- Idries Shah
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When the mind is full of established biases, it will not be able to graft Sufism on top of them. -- Idries Shah
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To send a kiss by messenger. -- Idries Shah
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The learned person who only talks will never Penetrate to the inner heart of humans. -- Idries Shah
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Man (and woman) has an infinite capacity for self-development. Equally, he has an infinite capacity for self-destruction. A human being may be clinically alive and yet, despite all appearances, spiritually dead. -- Idries Shah
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MAGHRIBI: Learning is in activity. Learning through words alone is minor activity. -- Idries Shah
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One of the tragedies of modern times is that people have come to believe that something said by someone in the past, perhaps for illustrative or provocation purposes, actually represents that person's beliefs at the time. -- Idries Shah
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What you are seeking in your retreat, I see clearly in every road and alleyway. -- Idries Shah
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Ignorance is the Mother of Opposition -- 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. -- Idries Shah
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When the lion had eaten its fill, and the jackals had taken their share, the ants came along and finished up the meat from the bones of the haughty stag. -- Idries Shah
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When you are still fragmentated, lacking certainty - what difference does it make what your decisions are? -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
Monkishness
No monkery in Islam. -- Idries Shah
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Whoever knows God, does not (any longer) say "God". -- Idries Shah
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Nothing can defile the Sufi, and he in fact purifies everything." Abu-Turab al-Nakhsabi. -- Idries Shah
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A king who feared wasps once decreed that they were abolished. As it happened, they did him no harm. But he was eventually stung to death by scorpions. -- Idries Shah
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Enlightenment must come little by little - otherwise it would overwhelm. -- Idries Shah
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The selection and following of a spiritual guide is the most important duty of a Sufi. -- Idries Shah
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Practise your knowledge, for knowledge without practice is a body without life -- Idries Shah
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You can keep going on much less attention than you crave. -- Idries Shah
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But the minimum human duty is to serve others: it is no great attainment. -- Idries Shah
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What can you do with a person who says that he is absolutely uncertain about everything, and that he is absolutely certain about that? -- Idries Shah
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It will pass, whatever it is. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet.
Lies, promises, trust
He is not of mine who lies, breaks a promise or fails in his trust. -- Idries Shah
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The great poet Hafiz says that you should dye your prayer-carpet with wine if your teacher tells you to do so. -- Idries Shah
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A man must be a Salomon before his magical ring will work -- Idries Shah
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Learning without action is like wax without honey.
(Anwar-i-Suhaili) -- Idries Shah
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Three Things
Three things cannot be retrieved:
The arrow once sped from the bow
The word spoken in haste
The missed opportunity.
(Ali the Lion, Caliph of Islam, son-in-law of Mohammed the Prophet), -- Idries Shah
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With enough information, it is almost impossible "not" to predict people's action. -- Idries Shah
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Question 3: Why should a person study Sufism?
Answer: Because he was created to study it; it is his next step. -- Idries Shah
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There is a saying that, according to what a person's mentality is, even an angel may seem to him to have a devil's face. -- Idries Shah
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The stupidest man I ever met had a favourite saying. It was: 'What do you think I am, stupid, or something? -- Idries Shah
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Much smoke has been seen, and caused great fear of fire - even when no fire ensued. -- 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! -- Idries Shah
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Much travel is needed before the raw man is ripened. -- Idries Shah
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To bind one free man with love is better than to release a thousand slaves. -- Idries Shah
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But one may say something and yet not be able to do it. Try, for instance, lifting yourself up by the bootstraps. -- Idries Shah
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Opportunity's precious, and time is a sword. -- Idries Shah
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You must empty out the dirty water before you fill the pitcher with clean. -- Idries Shah
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The clothes may vary, but the person is the same. -- Idries Shah
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Dramatic. A well developed sense of the dramatic has values beyond what people usually imagine. One of these is to realise the limitations of a sense of the dramatic. -- Idries Shah
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Day and Night
The night is long: do not shorten it by sleep. The day is fair: do not darken it with wrongdoing. -- Idries Shah
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Death
If he is a good man, death will be a release;
If he is a bad one, it will release others from him. -- Idries Shah
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Our objective is to achieve, by the understanding of the Origin, the Knowledge which comes through experience. -- Idries Shah
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From the beginning, from the age of Adam to the time of kingship: from the powerful, pardon: from the poor, sins. -- Idries Shah
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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. -- Idries Shah
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He discards a quilt for fear of bugs. -- Idries Shah
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I have heard all that you have had to say to me on your problems.
You ask me what to do about them.
It is my view that your real problem is that you are a member of the human race.
Face that one first. -- Idries Shah
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What you have to learn is how to find the unworldly in everything. -- Idries Shah
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When the ignorant have become numerous or powerful enough, they have been referred to by a special name. This names is 'the Wise'. -- Idries Shah
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People today are in danger of drowning in information; but, because they have been taught that information is useful, they are more willing to drown than they need be.
If they could handle information, they would not have to drown at all. -- Idries Shah
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Like calls to like, truth to truth and deceit to deceit. -- Idries Shah
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The Book of Wisdom. Simab said: 'I shall sell the Book of Wisdom for a hundred gold pieces, and some people will say that it is cheap.' Yunus Marmar said to him: 'And I shall give away the key to understanding it, and almost none shall take it, even free of charge. -- Idries Shah
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Effort makes some great men famous.
Even greater effort enables other great men to remain unknown. -- Idries Shah
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When the Higher Man does something worthy of admiration, it is an evidence of his Mastership, not the object of it. -- Idries Shah
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You may be able to get the bone down your throat
But if it reaches your stomach it will tear your navel.
(Gulistan) -- Idries Shah
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These lecture provide material for the consideration of common factors, in theory and in development, from the viewpoint of the idea of surrender to the Divine Will, reviewing some aspects of the interplay between Christians and Moslems, and introducing material from and about Sufis. -- Idries Shah
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Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Patience: A support for the disappointed. -- Idries Shah
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A Sufi has a right to be served, but he has no right to demand. Maruf Karkhi of Khorasan -- Idries Shah
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As swords were designed to kill
They did well to make them tongue-shaped.

(Anwar-i-Suhaili) -- Idries Shah
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Only the search for truth is valid, the desire for wisdom the motive. The method is assimilation, not study. -- Idries Shah
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The proverb says that 'The answer to a fool is silence'. Observation, however, indicates that almost any other answer will have the same effect in the long run. -- Idries Shah
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Sufis are not here to satisfy a demand. They exist to share what they have got. These two things are not always the same. -- Idries Shah
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BARQI: AESTHETICS IS ONLY THE LOWEST FORM OF PERCEPTION OF THE REAL. -- Idries Shah
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People talk about 'service, effort, love, knowledge'. But with knowledge you know what love is, and what it is not. -- Idries Shah
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One should not pray if that prayer is vanity. -- Idries Shah
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Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Bribe
Substitute for law, which is a substitute for justice. -- Idries Shah
Idries Shah Quotes : pic 000837525
I am an idol worshipper; for I understand what idol worship means, and the idolater does not. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Mulla Nasrudin. If I survive this life without dying, I'll be surprised. -- 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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Many people who are in reality dead are walking in the streets; many who are in their graves are in reality alive. -- Idries Shah
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Almost every day I am reminded of Saadi's reflection that there is no senseless tyranny like that of subordinates. -- Idries Shah
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Better to quarrel with a friend than to support enemies. -- Idries Shah
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No colour comes after black. -- Idries Shah
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Whoever has not first dug a well, should not steal a minaret. -- Idries Shah
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Well-meant techniques such as arbitrary self-mortification, are useless. -- Idries Shah
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The Sufis say, "This is not a religion; it is religion -- Idries Shah
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Trust is needed before lessons can be learnt. -- Idries Shah
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The pathways into Sufic thinking are, it is traditionally said, almost as varied as the number of Sufis in existence. -- Idries Shah
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Sufis aim to refine human consciousness. This is Sufi mysticism: not mystification or magic, but a specific Path. -- Idries Shah
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Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Drugs: Source of the mystical experience of the ignorant. -- Idries Shah
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From time to time ponder whether you are unconsciously saying:
'Truth is what I happen to be thinking at this moment. -- Idries Shah
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The Sufi saying has it: God, to the bee, is something which has TWO stings! -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
The Judge
A man appointed to be a judge has been killed without a knife. -- Idries Shah
Idries Shah Quotes : pic 000913835
The bird which has no knowledge of pure water, has his beak in salt water all year round. -- Idries Shah
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A Sufi is alive to the value of time, and is given, every moment, to what that moment demands. -- Idries Shah
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THE HEAVENS
To the mallet of the Highest Mind
The heavens are the smallest possible ball.
(Akhlaq-i-Mohsini) -- Idries Shah
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Patience is bitter, but bears a sweet fruit. -- Idries Shah
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If a Manx cat tells you that it is trying to preserve its long, beautiful tail, you don't have to believe it - especially if you have eyes. -- Idries Shah
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When sense has left a head, it should be called a tail. -- Idries Shah
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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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Anybody or anything may stand between you and knowledge if you are unfit for it. -- Idries Shah
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Sufism is experiential. Capacities, even those for learning beyond a certain point, are provoked by Sufis, by one's own efforts and what results from them, and by an element of what is referred to by Sufis as the Divine. -- Idries Shah
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You have come a long way, and you do not know it. You have a long way to do, and you do know what that means. -- Idries Shah
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All approaches to a study or an individual may start with a desire for attention. However they start, they must never end up in this manner. -- Idries Shah
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Laziness is always your fault. It is the sign that a man has persevered in uselessness for too long. -- Idries Shah
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A Sufi school comes into being in order to flourish and disappear, not to leave traces in mechanical ritual, or anthropologically survivals. -- Idries Shah
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Have the nature of a dervish: then wear a stylish cap. -- Idries Shah
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When people believe that the form is more important than the Truth, they will not find truth, but will stay with form. -- Idries Shah
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You say that this society will come to an end, because societies always have done so.
I wonder whether they have ended because they were not really societies at all. -- Idries Shah
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Enemies are often former or potential friends who have been denied - or think that they have been denied - something. -- Idries Shah
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You must improve yourself on a higher level if you are to be able to help people, and not just weep over them. -- Idries Shah
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What goes into a salt-mine becomes salt. -- Idries Shah
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A book, for the Sufis, is an instrument as much as it is something to give information. -- Idries Shah
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For every Pharoah there is a Moses. -- Idries Shah
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Most of the supposedly Sufi organizations, exercises and "orders" are in fact only of archaeological interest. -- 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. -- Idries Shah
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Forms have changed through the centuries in obedience to the external world to which all forms belong. -- Idries Shah
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Sufism is education, in that it has a body of knowledge which it transmits to those who have not got it. -- Idries Shah
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Sandals. The Sufi teacher Ghulam-Shah was asked what pattern he used in formulating his courses for disciples. He said: 'Barefoot until you can get sandals, sandals until you can manage boots. -- Idries Shah
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The degree of necessity determines the development of organs in man ... therefore increase your necessity. -- Idries Shah
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Brave is the thief who carries a lamp in his hand. -- Idries Shah
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A man from the Land of Fools wanted to pull down the clouds.
'Why?' someone asked him.
'To squeeze out the rain. -- Idries Shah
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The object of Sufi preparatory study, however, being to illustrate, expose and out-manoeuvre superficial ambition. -- Idries Shah
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abandonment of spiritual values which makes us stand aghast.' The Mir answered: 'Neither could you provide entertainment for your people, nor could you bind them to your person. To call them "my people -- Idries Shah
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Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Wisdom: Something you can learn without knowing it. -- Idries Shah
Idries Shah Quotes : pic 001008915
Advice is priceless: when it becomes interference it is preposterous. -- Idries Shah
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Continuously, in commemoration of the Friend
We drank wine, even before the creation of the vine. -- Idries Shah
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Inner Knowledge
You want to become wise in one lesson: First become a real human being. -- Idries Shah
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The spirit is the mirror; the body is the rust.
(Divan-i-Shamsi Tabriz) -- Idries Shah
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Study institutions may become visible when the head is more emptied of imaginings. -- Idries Shah
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You make me a sinner if you stop me giving you hospitality. -- Idries Shah
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Whoever is to be wise despises himself. Only the ignorant trust their own judgement. -- Idries Shah
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God provides the food, men provide the cooks. -- Idries Shah
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Great men are great until they know it. Saints are holy until they know it. -- Idries Shah
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However fast you run, or however skilfully, you can't run away from your own feet. -- Idries Shah
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People who cannot trust are themselves not trustworthy, and therefore cannot be entrusted with important things. -- Idries Shah
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Worry is a cloud which rains destruction. -- Idries Shah
Idries Shah Quotes : pic 001037534
What do I sing, and what does my tambourine sing? -- Idries Shah
Idries Shah Quotes : pic 001047109
Voice in the night
A voice whispered to me last night: 'There is no such thing as a voice whispering in the night! -- Idries Shah
Idries Shah Quotes : pic 001049023
THE BIRD AND THE WATER
A bird which has not heard of fresh water
Dips his beak in salt-water year after year.
(Anwar-i-Suhaili) -- Idries Shah
Idries Shah Quotes : pic 001055558
It is the message, not the man, which is important to the Sufis. -- Idries Shah
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Real generosity is anonymous to the extent that a man should be prepared even to be considered ungenerous rather than explain it to others. -- Idries Shah
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Correct teaching brings out human excellence. -- Idries Shah
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The secret of Sufism is that it has no secret at all'. -- Idries Shah
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No duty is ignoble. What can be ignoble is the sight of people trying not to be ignoble. -- Idries Shah
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Wisdom is when you understand what, previously, at best you only knew. -- Idries Shah
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The Sufis are unanimous that a Guide (Sheikh) is absolutely essential, though never available on demand: 'the Sufis are not merchants'. -- Idries Shah
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EPITAPH OF JALALUDIN RUMI
When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men. -- Idries Shah
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No practice exists in isolation. -- Idries Shah
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A motto of the human race: Let me do as I like, and give me approval as well. -- Idries Shah
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Sufism is the essence of all religions. -- Idries Shah
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Until you can understand illogicality, and the meaningfulness of it, shun the Sufis except for limited, precise, self-evident services. -- Idries Shah
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Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza.
Worry: Something to make you unnecessarily ill. -- Idries Shah
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If you are covetous, you are a prisoner: If you are greedy, you will never be filled. -- Idries Shah
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Disappointment cannot exist without expectation. The expected apricot is never as sweet when it reaches the mouth. -- Idries Shah
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Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun? -- Idries Shah
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One of the great Sufis said: 'A saint is a saint unless he knows that he is one. -- Idries Shah
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The Path is not to be found anywhere except in human service -- Idries Shah
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The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk. -- Idries Shah
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Salute to the Thief. Junaid of Baghdad was passing the scene of a public hanging, where a thief was on the scaffold. Junaid bowed towards the criminal. Someone asked him: 'What did you do that?' Junaid said: 'I was bowing before his single-mindedness. For his aim, that man has given his life. -- Idries Shah
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Deteriorated science is a cult, so is imitative or deteriorated Sufism. -- Idries Shah
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Two people can illustrate crudity to you.
The first is the crude man, whom you see perceiving the diamond as a stone.
The other is the refined man, who makes clear to you the crudity of the first one. -- Idries Shah
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When a belief becomes more than an instrument, you are lost. You remain lost until you learn what 'belief' is really for. -- Idries Shah
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He who is fortunately enlightened [the Sufi]
Knows that sophistry is from the devil and love from Adam. -- Idries Shah
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ANDAKI: EFFORT IS NOT EFFORT WITHOUT ZAMAN, MAKAN, IKHWAN (RIGHT TIME, RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT PEOPLE). -- Idries Shah
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One day the cub will become a wolf, even if it has been reared among the sons of man. -- Idries Shah
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He is the completed Man who, from his completeness, performs, with his Mastership, the work of a slave. -- Idries Shah
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Everything man needs is in the world. -- Idries Shah
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If you seek a teacher, try to become a real student. If you want to be a student, try to find a real teacher. -- Idries Shah
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There can be no spirituality, according to the Sufi masters, without psychology, psychological insight and sociological balance. -- Idries Shah
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Hit your hand on a stone and expect it to hurt. -- Idries Shah
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People carry on whole conversations in proverbs. But they are not LIVING the proverbs. -- Idries Shah
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Deep in the sea are riches beyond compare. But if you seek safety, it is on the shore. -- Idries Shah
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The tongue is the best masseur of furrowed brows. -- Idries Shah
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I asked a child, walking with a candle, 'From where comes that light?' Instantly he blew it out. 'Tell me where it is gone - then I will tell you where it came from.' (Hasan of Basra) -- Idries Shah
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There is something in man which can detect real love. We rub it out, or muffle it, by substitute-love. -- Idries Shah
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Make mankind your dwelling place. -- Idries Shah
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If you do not understand, you cannot love. You can only imagine that you love. -- Idries Shah
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The existence of relative truth does not prove the non-existence of universal truth. -- Idries Shah
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Whatever goes into a salt-mine becomes salt. -- Idries Shah
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When there is a true or useful thing, there is sure to be a counterfeit. -- Idries Shah
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... when we are talking about 'Christians' and 'Moslems' we must first make sure that we are talking about people who have an idea, which should be more or less correct, as to what the other is supposed to believe and what he is expected to do as a consequence of that belief. -- Idries Shah
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The lightning said to the oak tree: 'Stand aside, or take what is coming to you! -- Idries Shah
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The aspirant has to be guided by a mentor. The stage at which this guidance can take effect is seldom, if ever, perceptible to the learner. -- Idries Shah
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Greed harms you: generosity helps you. This is why it has been said: 'Greed is the mother of incapacity'. -- Idries Shah
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It is as true as anything else which can be spoken to say that all knowledge is really available everywhere. -- Idries Shah
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If you have two shirts, sell one and with the money buy a flower'. -- Idries Shah
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Trying to force something is the best way to stop it happening. -- Idries Shah
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Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
A fool:
A man trying to be honest with the dishonest. -- Idries Shah
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Sufism, they say, is that which enables one to understand religion, irrespective of its current outward form. -- Idries Shah
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They asked Abboud of Omdurman: 'Which is better, to be young or to be old?' He said: 'To be old is to have less time before you and more mistakes behind. I leave you to decide whether this is better than the reverse. -- Idries Shah
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Exaggeration is a standard peculiarity of man. To deprecate is often a form of exaggeration which people do not notice, because it appears to be its opposite. -- Idries Shah
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In a village where everyone has only one leg, the biped will hop about more lamely than anyone else, if he knows what is good for him. -- Idries Shah
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The fruit of timidity is neither gain nor loss. -- Idries Shah
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Before garden, vine or grape was in the world," writes one, "our soul was drunken with immortal wine. -- Idries Shah
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The power of Allah: no sound, no shape, no form. But when it manifests, none can resist it. -- Idries Shah
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Conviction, far from being based upon reason, is the enemy of reason; because rationality does not change, while convictions do, all the time. -- Idries Shah
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If you give what can be taken, you are not really giving. Take what you are given, not what you want to be given. Give what cannot be taken. -- Idries Shah
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The mine is always bigger than the gem. -- Idries Shah
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Knowledge. How curious that a man who closes his hand upon air so often thinks that he has a ruby within his grasp. -- Idries Shah
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The word 'choice' is a fraud while people choose only what they have been taught to choose. -- Idries Shah
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SENTENCES OF THE KHAJAGAN
GURGANI:
The teacher and the taught together produce the teaching. -- Idries Shah
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It has truly been said that 'Humility is not so much a virtue as a necessity, in order to learn. -- Idries Shah
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Water shrinks wool, urgency shrinks time.
Shrinkage may be an advantage or the reverse, according to expectation. -- Idries Shah
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Learn to be as analytical about things of which you are credulous as you are of those which you criticise. -- Idries Shah
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People change and needs change. So what was Sufism once is Sufism no more. -- Idries Shah
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The basic urge toward mysticism is never, in the unaltered man, clear enough to be recognized for what it is. -- Idries Shah
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The process of learning is the process of discovering what really exists. -- Idries Shah
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Everyone does not know the secrets of Truth
The States of Truth are not evidential. -- Idries Shah
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Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Adherent:
Someone who will believe anything except what he should. -- Idries Shah
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Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Flattery:
One of the most promising of businesses: always brisk. -- Idries Shah
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Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Intellectual: One who knows no craft. -- Idries Shah
Idries Shah Quotes : pic 001282841
Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Poverty: The result of marriage. -- Idries Shah
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Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Emotionalist:
A man or woman who thinks he has experienced the divine. -- Idries Shah
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Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Supporter: Someone who will say anything. -- Idries Shah
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Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Penitent: Someone who has been made incapable of enjoying himself. -- Idries Shah
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Miracles, to the Sufi, are not evidential, they are instrumental. -- Idries Shah
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The door of illumination is open to those for whom other doors are closed. -- Idries Shah
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The worst of sages is a visitor of princes; the best of princes is a visitor of sages. -- 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. -- Idries Shah
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The answer to a fool is silence. (Proverb) -- Idries Shah
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Brotherhood" to the more civilised is connected with training and identity of interest.' Man -- Idries Shah
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Any society which enjoins its members to adhere to both of these (politeness and truth) is a fraud. -- Idries Shah
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A MOTTO OF THE HUMAN RACE
Tell me what to do; but it must be what I want you to tell me. -- Idries Shah
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That which is given free is never knowledge. It may be information ... but knowledge does not come in that manner. -- Idries Shah
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Knowledge is something which you can use.
Belief is something which uses you. -- Idries Shah
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Things which are seemingly opposed may in fact be working together -- Idries Shah
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None should say : 'I can trust,' or 'I cannot trust' until he is a master of the option, of trusting or not trusting. -- Idries Shah
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What is sometimes thought to be clever is, significantly often, merely an advanced form of foolishness. -- Idries Shah
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When you realise the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge. -- Idries Shah
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The Sufi must be able to alternate his thought between the relative and the Absolute, the approximate and the Real. -- Idries Shah
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Banality is like boredom: bored people are boring people, people who think that things are banal are themselves banal.
Interesting people can find something interesting in all things. -- Idries Shah
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That which is capable of perceiving objective reality is, in Sufism, the human soul (ruh). -- Idries Shah
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An old fool is worse than a young one: For the young may always grow wise. (Zohair) -- Idries Shah
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He who knows himself, knows his Lord' means, among other things, that self-deception prevents knowledge. -- Idries Shah
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Give and Take
The Chief takes less than he is given
And gives more than he has taken -- Idries Shah
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Exercise power by means of kindness, and you may be causing more damage than you could by cruelty. Neither approach is correct. -- Idries Shah
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The skilled artisan uses the same iron to make a horseshoe
As he does for a polished mirror for the King. -- Idries Shah
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A man's capacity is the same as his breadth of vision. -- Idries Shah
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If your desire for 'good' is based on greed, it is not good, but greed. -- Idries Shah
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Scraps
The scraps from the meal of the Emir are larger than the gifts of halwa from the merchant.

Timur Fazil -- Idries Shah
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When Fortune knocks, open the door,' they say. But why should one make fortune knock, by keeping the door shut? -- Idries Shah
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The teaching must, of course, work with the best part of the individual, must be directed to his or her real capacity. -- Idries Shah
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Of whom can we think well when it is believed that if nothing bad is done to you, this has been a kindness? -- Idries Shah
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Denial and affirmation are games which people play.
There are people who deny that they are capable of denying, and who would insist that people do not insist. -- Idries Shah
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among roses, be a rose, among thorns, be a thorn -- Idries Shah
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I ask about the sky, but the answer is about a rope. -- Idries Shah
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Sufis (the name for the realised individual, not the learner or follower) are reunited with objective Reality and Unity. -- Idries Shah
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If wine is the enemy of religion, I shall devour the enemy of religion. -- Idries Shah
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How many friends would you have if you went from one to another asking them to conceal a dead body? -- Idries Shah
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Hariri says, in his Maqamat: 'Safety is on the river's BANK. -- Idries Shah
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Wisdom
Sufian said:
'The wisdom which is invisible but which sustains is a hundred times better than the appearance of wisdom, for that has itself to be sustained. -- Idries Shah
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Too much kindness towards the fox may mean doom for the rabbit. -- Idries Shah
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The Sufis,' runs the saying, 'understand with their hearts what the most learned scholars cannot understand with their minds -- Idries Shah
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Rumi himself once said that counterfeit gold is only to be found because there is such a thing as real gold to be copied. -- Idries Shah
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It is not only a matter of not caring who knows - it is also a matter of knowing who cares. -- Idries Shah
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Careful preparation is necessary before people can perceive something which is there all the time. -- Idries Shah
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Rumi speaks of people who rely upon the written word as sometimes being no more than donkeys laden with books. -- Idries Shah
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Premature independence is the daughter of conceit. -- Idries Shah
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Now that I have found thee, I know that in the first step I took, I moved away from thee. -- Idries Shah
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Dye your hair, certainly. But what can you do for your face? -- Idries Shah
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It is the goldsmith who can assay the gold. -- Idries Shah
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Proverbs and truisms are for this reason dangerous, because they produce blindness or non-thought. -- Idries Shah
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HE is a Master who may teach without it being totally labelled teaching; HE is a student who can learn without being obsessed by learning. -- Idries Shah
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Assume that you are part-hypocrite and part heedless, and you will not be far wrong. -- Idries Shah
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If ... says: 'Do not be greedy, be generous', you may inwardly interpret this in such a manner that you will develop a greed for generosity -- Idries Shah
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Truth has no form. -- Idries Shah
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But the Sufis work IN the world, and therefore WITH 'things of the world'. -- Idries Shah
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Not to be greedy is, paradoxically, the highest form of looking after one's true interests. -- Idries Shah
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Q: What is a fundamental mistake of man's?
A: To think that he is alive, when he has merely fallen asleep in life's waiting-room. -- Idries Shah
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Inheritance and culture obscure people's higher capacities. -- Idries Shah
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Saadi's dictum, in the Bostan: 'The Path is not in the rosary, the prayer-mat and the robe -- Idries Shah
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The people of the world have a fixed destiny. But the spiritually developed receive what is "not" in their destiny. -- Idries Shah
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Learn about hornets from those who have been stung by them. -- Idries Shah
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Those who can't, try: those who can, don't have to. -- Idries Shah
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The barren branches may appear inelegant: They are, to the cook, the means to make his fire. -- Idries Shah
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Sufism is experiential -- Idries Shah
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Information about the activities of one body of Sufis may be harmful to the potential of another. -- Idries Shah
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The Apparent is the Bridge to the Real -- Idries Shah
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Much religious teaching in the world is in reality a confused or deteriorated form, very different from its roots. -- Idries Shah
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Humility is a teacher of itself. It is learnt by means of its practise. -- Idries Shah
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You fear tomorrow: yet yesterday is just as dangerous. -- Idries Shah
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Man thinks many things. He thinks he is One. He is usually several. Until he becomes One, he cannot have a fair idea of what he is at all. -- Idries Shah
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It is not always a question of the Emperor having no clothes on. Sometimes it is, 'Is that an Emperor at all? -- Idries Shah
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If you cannot laugh frequently and genuinely, you have no soul. -- Idries Shah
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If you can turn a murderer into a mere thief, you are making progress. -- Idries Shah
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It is not 'Have I got a chance?' It is more often: 'Have I seen my chance? -- Idries Shah
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SOVEREIGNTY
Sovereignty is a wind of change.
(Hariri) -- Idries Shah
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Why did I do such-and-such a thing?' is all very well. But what about 'How otherwise could I have done it? -- Idries Shah
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Service
I will not serve God like a labourer, in expectation of my wages.

Rabia el-Adawia. -- Idries Shah
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If you seek small things to do, and do them well, great things will seek you, and demand to be performed. -- Idries Shah
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Be kind to the hawk and harm the sparrow. -- Idries Shah
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Sufi secrets are perceived, not understood by words. -- Idries Shah
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Eat what you desire, but dress like other people. -- Idries Shah
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All forms are limited. Some of the limitations are time, place, culture, language. -- Idries Shah
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Self-mortification, far from producing liberation from material things, is far more likely to cause either an unhinged mind, delusions or a masochistic taste for more suffering, experienced, of course, as joy. -- Idries Shah
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It is axiomatic that the attempt to become a Sufi through a desire for personal power as normally understood will not succeed. -- Idries Shah
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If you assume that it is there, you will generally not be far off the truth. -- Idries Shah
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The problem is that the spurious, the unreal, the untrue is so much easier to find that it is in danger of becoming the norm. -- Idries Shah
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No surgeon can treat the wounds of the tongue. -- Idries Shah
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The Sufis have said: 'The importance of something is in inverse proportion to its attractiveness. -- Idries Shah
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Most systems end up by making imagined humility into a form of vanity, so they end up with vanity just the same. -- Idries Shah
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Satisfaction is a treasure which does not decay.
Proverb -- Idries Shah
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People are always trying to understand.
There is only one way to do that.
It is to discover < +="" i="" +="">why< +="" i="" +=""> you want to understand. -- Idries Shah
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If the path has been laid down, why the successive appearance of different teachers? Why would anyone reinvent the wheel, if everything were as cosy and sequential as primitive longing so easily convinces us? -- Idries Shah
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If you want to be a calligrapher, write, and write, and write. -- Idries Shah
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Study the assumptions behind your actions. Then study the assumptions behind your assumptions. -- Idries Shah
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Sufism, in one definition, "is" human life. -- Idries Shah
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One cannot learn from someone whom one distrusts. -- Idries Shah
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Sufi Teachers are not, as you might hope, people who make you feel peace and harmony. -- Idries Shah
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When tomorrow comes, think tomorrow's thoughts. -- Idries Shah
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Call yourself unlucky only if you take up coffin-making and people stop dying. -- Idries Shah
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A man who believes the word of a donkey in preference to my word does not deserve to be lent anything. -- Idries Shah
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Opinion is usually something which people have when they lack comprehensive information. -- Idries Shah
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When people have a hard task to do - one which stretches them - they become less concerned with trivial matters. -- Idries Shah
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The major barrier to understanding is wishful thinking and following that which pleases one. -- Idries Shah
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Man (as he imagines himself to be), in general, is a possibility, not a fact. -- Idries Shah
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SENTENCES OF THE KHAJAGAN
RUDBARI : Heart to heart is an essential means of passing on the secrets of the Path. -- Idries Shah
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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. -- Idries Shah
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In the realm of Greater Understanding, the workshop is dismantled after the work is finished. -- Idries Shah
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Take the wheat, not the measure in which it is contained -- Idries Shah
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People who have fallacious objectives are like the barren soil. The flowers grow from soil which is composed of the right objectives. -- Idries Shah
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Do not tell your secrets to everyone in this headquarters, Earth. We have surveyed it well. There was nobody to whom to entrust secrets. -- Idries Shah
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Man has less than he suspects of: Time, Friends, Hopes, Qualities.
Proverb -- Idries Shah
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A yellow dog is brother to the jackal. -- Idries Shah
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Because sugar is not arsenic, many graves are full. -- Idries Shah
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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. -- Idries Shah
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Patience is the food of understanding. -- Idries Shah
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If you give what can be takes, you are not really giving.
Take what you are given, not what you want to be given.
Take what is given:
Give what cannot be taken. -- Idries Shah
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People used to play with toys.
Now the toys play with them. -- Idries Shah
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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. -- Idries Shah
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It is not enough that there is a collection of people with the common aim of working in unison towards an objective ... Aspiration and desire only are not enough. -- Idries Shah
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Haste is from the Devil. -- Idries Shah
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Sufism, the "secret tradition," is not available on the basis of assumptions which belong to another world, the world of intellect. -- Idries Shah
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The donkey which brought you to this door must be dismissed if you want to get through it'. -- Idries Shah
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A donkey eats a melon, it remains a donkey -- Idries Shah
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You will never reach Mecca, I fear: for you are on the road to Turkestan. -- Idries Shah
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Sufism is, in fact, not a mystical system, not a religion, but a body of knowledge. -- Idries Shah
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But the world itself, as well as special attitudes, properly understood, constitute the Sufi school. -- Idries Shah
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Mediation - Before you learn how to meditate, you must unlearn what you think meditation might be. -- Idries Shah
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There is a succession of experiences which together constitute the educational and developmental ripening of the learner, according to the Sufis. People who think that each gain is the goal itself will freeze at any such stage, and cannot learn through successive and superseding lessons. -- Idries Shah
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The would-be Sufi needs guidance precisely because books, texts, while telling you what is needed, do not tell you when. -- Idries Shah
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Knowledge gives nothing to a man until he gives everything to it. -- Idries Shah
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Virtually all organisations known to you work largely by means of your greed. -- Idries Shah
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Better the demon which makes you improve than the angel who threatens. -- Idries Shah
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The function of a nutrient is to become transmuted, not to leave unaltered traces. -- Idries Shah
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Life: sometimes the man on the saddle, sometimes the saddle on the man. -- Idries Shah
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IMPRESSIONS
Time brought a thousand impressions.
Not one of them had I seen in the mirror of the imagination.
(Anwar-i-Suhaili) -- Idries Shah
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Good. Show me a man who thinks that he knows what 'good' is, and I will probably be able to show you a horror of a person. Show me a person who really knows what 'good' is, and I will show you that he almost never uses the word. -- Idries Shah
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No effort makes a black crow into a white hawk. -- Idries Shah
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What you are pleased to call Sufism is merely the record of past method. -- Idries Shah
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To drown in treacle is just as unpleasant as to drown in mud. -- Idries Shah
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first pious man, who said: 'Did you encounter my disciples and help them?' Khidr answered: -- Idries Shah
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Teach honesty by all means - you do know what it is, don't you? -- Idries Shah
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Sufi service has to be the right kind of service; neither servitude nor hypocrisy. -- Idries Shah
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Forms are vehicles and instruments, and vehicles and instruments cannot be called good or bad without context. -- Idries Shah
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The chicken had his wish, and was magically transformed into a fox. Then he found that he could not digest grain. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
The Bequest
I have nothing to leave you except my family. -- Idries Shah
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Saying of the Prophet
Helping others
I order you to assist any oppressed person, whether he is a Muslim or not. -- Idries Shah
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One day we will all wear a garment which has no pockets ... -- Idries Shah
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Feeling important is a vice, not a virtue, however concealed as participation in something noble. -- Idries Shah
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People cannot handle prejudice because they try to deal with the symptom. Prejudice is the symptom, wrong assumptions are the cause.
'Prejudice is the daughter of assumption. -- Idries Shah
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A stolen kiss is not easily returned. -- Idries Shah
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Sufism is known by means of itself. -- Idries Shah
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If you want to strengthen an enemy and make him exult - hate him. -- Idries Shah
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A Sufi is one who is not bound by anything nor does he bind anything -- Idries Shah
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To copy a virtue in another is more copying than it is virtue. Try to learn what that virtue is based upon. -- Idries Shah
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When humility is exercised, people begin to realise that they do not, as it were, exist at all. -- Idries Shah
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If you want to know what he's like - reverse what his opponents say. -- Idries Shah
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One lie will keep out forty truths. -- Idries Shah
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The practice of the Sufis is too sublime to have a formal beginning, -- Idries Shah
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I longed to teach, but I had to wait until the desire had left me before I could really do so. -- Idries Shah
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There is no wisdom where there is no common sense: it cannot under those conditions find any expression. -- Idries Shah
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Sufism is transmitted by means of the human exemplar, the teacher. -- Idries Shah
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It is not important to have said a thing first, or best - or even most interestingly. What is important is to say it on the right occasion. -- Idries Shah
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It was being written in the East that 'Sufism was formerly a reality without a name: now it is a name without a reality'. -- Idries Shah
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It is not Sufism if it does not perform its function for you. A cloak is no longer a cloak if it does not keep a man warm. -- Idries Shah
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They have fixed our nutrition and arranged our life-span. More than this, and ahead of this, efforts will not be productive. -- Idries Shah
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Each flies with its own kind: pigeon with pigeon, hawk with hawk. -- Idries Shah
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Because there is a word for perfection, people will always imagine that they know it. -- Idries Shah
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We and all our existences are non-entities. Thou art the absolute being whose appearance is transitory. -- Idries Shah
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The laziness of adolescence is a rehearsal for the incapacity of old age. -- Idries Shah
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When the human being says:
'It is not true ... '
He may mean:
'I don't know about it, so I think it is untrue.'
Or:
'I don't like it. -- Idries Shah
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Sufism is that which succeeds in bringing to man the High Knowledge. -- Idries Shah
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Sufism," according to the Sufi, "is an adventure in living, necessary adventure. -- Idries Shah
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You are still adrift while you still think that a means is an end. -- Idries Shah
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Generosity is also marked by doing what one says one will do. -- Idries Shah
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A great deal of thought is only a substitute for the thoughts that the individual would really find useful at the time. -- Idries Shah
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The sort of man who, throwing a stone upon the ground, would miss. -- Idries Shah
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Who is the wrong person to criticise?
You -- Idries Shah
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People in this civilization are starving in the middle of plenty. This is a civilization that is going down, not because it hasn't got the knowledge that would save it, but because nobody will use the knowledge. -- Idries Shah
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Remember the proverb: 'A sign is enough for the alert, but a thousand counsels are not enough for the negligent. -- Idries Shah
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A real secret is something which only one person knows. -- Idries Shah
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Form is useful, but it is secondary. -- Idries Shah
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Humility has to precede instruction. -- Idries Shah
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Sufism is always systematised only for limited or transitory periods: because Sufism is primarly instrumental, not for enjoyment or display. -- Idries Shah
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MAN: Kick him-he'll forgive you. Flatter him-he may or may not see through you. But ignore him and he'll hate you -- Idries Shah
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The sufis believe that they can experience something more complete. -- Idries Shah
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The more you look at 'common knowledge', the more you realise that it is more likely to be common than it is to be knowledge.
No real knowledge is common. -- Idries Shah
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None meets harm who knows his capacity. -- Idries Shah
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The significance of the dwelling is in the dweller. -- Idries Shah
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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? -- Idries Shah
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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 think that they think things, and they also think that they know things. They could usefully give some attention to the question of whether they know what they think and know what they think they know. -- Idries Shah
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The hearts of the noble are the graves of confidences. -- Idries Shah
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Action is in fact knowledge in operation. Right action stems from right knowledge. Right knowledge is acquired through the teacher. -- Idries Shah
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We are adjured not to burn the candle at both ends.
But how many people have verified that physically possible? -- Idries Shah
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Hazrat Ali, in a saying attributed to him, says: 'Man is in disguise, covered by his tongue'. -- Idries Shah
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Knowledge cannot be attained except through humility. -- Idries Shah
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The institution of teachership is there for this reason, that the learner must learn how to learn. -- Idries Shah
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Patience is a garment which has never worn out. -- Idries Shah
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Pick up a bee from kindness, and learn the limitations of kindness. -- Idries Shah
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You will never reach Mecca, because you are on the road to Samarkand -- Idries Shah
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The Sufi is 'One who does not care when something is taken from him, but who does not cease to seek for what he has not. -- Idries Shah
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Remember that greed includes greed for being not greedy. -- Idries Shah
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The colour of the water seems to be the colour of the glass into which it has been poured'. -- Idries Shah
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Whoever has taught me one letter has made me his slave. -- Idries Shah
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Sufism is the doing in this lifetime what any fool will be doing in then thousand years' time. -- Idries Shah
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Whoever gives knowledge to a fool loses it
And who keeps it from the deserving does wrong. -- Idries Shah
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Rust through washing never became white. -- Idries Shah
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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. -- Idries Shah
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What is humanity? To feel pain at the sorrows of our neighbours, to feel humiliated at the humiliation of fellow-beings. -- Idries Shah
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Words have to die if humans are to live. -- Idries Shah
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Take the straight path, even if it is long: marry no widow, even if she is a houri. -- Idries Shah
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And Rumi tells us, 'Soul receives from soul that knowledge, therefore not by book nor from tongue'. -- Idries Shah
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The means through which people may perceive Truth have forms; Truth has no form. -- Idries Shah
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You will always have doubts, but only discover them at a useful time for your weakness to point them out. -- Idries Shah
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Do not dwell upon whether you will put yourself into the hands of a teacher. You are always in his hands. -- Idries Shah
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If the father cannot, the son will finish the task. -- Idries Shah
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As the Eastern saying, by the sage Hilali, has it, 'one person who understands is worth a hundred who merely obey a custom. -- Idries Shah
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Progress comes through capacity to learn, and is irresistible. -- Idries Shah
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Helping othersbr>I order you to assist any oppressed person, whether he is a Moslem or not. -- Idries Shah