Idries Shah quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Idries Shah

Idries Shah Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Idries Shah on Wise Famous Quotes.

What is sometimes thought to be clever is, significantly often, merely an advanced form of foolishness.

Many people who are in reality dead are walking in the streets; many who are in their graves are in reality alive.

The basic urge toward mysticism is never, in the unaltered man, clear enough to be recognized for what it is.

There can be no spirituality, according to the Sufi masters, without psychology, psychological insight and sociological balance.

To say "yes" to the Sufi way is to say "no" to imagined escapes.

The hearts of the noble are the graves of confidences.

Ignorance is the Mother of Opposition

Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Drugs: Source of the mystical experience of the ignorant.

Learn about hornets from those who have been stung by them.

Sufism," according to the Sufi, "is an adventure in living, necessary adventure.

A real secret is something which only one person knows.

You may have forgotten the Way:
But those who came before
Did not forget you.
Saying of Master Bahaudin Naqshband of Bokhara

The learned person who only talks will never Penetrate to the inner heart of humans.

Man has less than he suspects of: Time, Friends, Hopes, Qualities.
Proverb

among roses, be a rose, among thorns, be a thorn

The Sufis,' runs the saying, 'understand with their hearts what the most learned scholars cannot understand with their minds

There is no wisdom where there is no common sense: it cannot under those conditions find any expression.

Sufism, they say, is that which enables one to understand religion, irrespective of its current outward form.

MAGHRIBI: Learning is in activity. Learning through words alone is minor activity.

Do not tell your secrets to everyone in this headquarters, Earth. We have surveyed it well. There was nobody to whom to entrust secrets.

The answer to a fool is silence. (Proverb)

Now that I have found thee, I know that in the first step I took, I moved away from thee.

Forms have changed through the centuries in obedience to the external world to which all forms belong.

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

A motto of the human race: Let me do as I like, and give me approval as well.

Your medicine is in you, and you do not observe it. Your ailment is from yourself, and you do not register it.

Hit your hand on a stone and expect it to hurt.

Saying of the Prophet
The Tongue
A man slips with his tongue more than with his feet.

You make me a sinner if you stop me giving you hospitality.

Enlightenment must come little by little - otherwise it would overwhelm.

The people of the world have a fixed destiny. But the spiritually developed receive what is "not" in their destiny.

I longed to teach, but I had to wait until the desire had left me before I could really do so.

Patience is bitter, but bears a sweet fruit.

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.

Remember the proverb: 'A sign is enough for the alert, but a thousand counsels are not enough for the negligent.

Saying of the Prophet
Struggle
The holy warrior is he who struggles with himself.

The Sufis say, "This is not a religion; it is religion

Opportunity's precious, and time is a sword.

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.

Saadi's dictum, in the Bostan: 'The Path is not in the rosary, the prayer-mat and the robe

Saying of the Prophet
Food
Nobody has eaten better food than that won by his own labour.

Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Adherent:
Someone who will believe anything except what he should.

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.

He is the completed Man who, from his completeness, performs, with his Mastership, the work of a slave.

The Apparent is the Bridge to the Real

Disappointment cannot exist without expectation. The expected apricot is never as sweet when it reaches the mouth.

Truth has no form.

Why do people always wonder whether books are any good, without wondering whether they are themselves in a state to profit from them?

The significance of the dwelling is in the dweller.

Knowledge cannot be attained except through humility.

EPITAPH OF JALALUDIN RUMI
When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men.

No duty is ignoble. What can be ignoble is the sight of people trying not to be ignoble.

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.

SENTENCES OF THE KHAJAGAN
GURGANI:
The teacher and the taught together produce the teaching.

Whoever knows God, does not (any longer) say "God".

Because there is a word for perfection, people will always imagine that they know it.

From the beginning, from the age of Adam to the time of kingship: from the powerful, pardon: from the poor, sins.

Knowledge. How curious that a man who closes his hand upon air so often thinks that he has a ruby within his grasp.

Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.

However fast you run, or however skilfully, you can't run away from your own feet.

The laziness of adolescence is a rehearsal for the incapacity of old age.

Saying of the Prophet
Distribution
God it is who gives: I am only a distributor.

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.

A man who believes the word of a donkey in preference to my word does not deserve to be lent anything.

I am an idol worshipper; for I understand what idol worship means, and the idolater does not.

SENTENCES OF THE KHAJAGAN
RUDBARI : Heart to heart is an essential means of passing on the secrets of the Path.

A generous person may not have wisdom: but, unlike others, he has the means to gain it.

Is your division of Understanding into Greater and Lesser common to all Sufis? Nothing which is put into words is common to all Sufis.

No colour comes after black.

What you are pleased to call Sufism is merely the record of past method.

No practice exists in isolation.

The door of illumination is open to those for whom other doors are closed.

Sufism is the essence of all religions.

Sufis aim to refine human consciousness. This is Sufi mysticism: not mystification or magic, but a specific Path.

Sufi secrets are perceived, not understood by words.

Satisfaction is a treasure which does not decay.
Proverb

The fruit of timidity is neither gain nor loss.

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

Who is the wrong person to criticise?
You

Learn to be as analytical about things of which you are credulous as you are of those which you criticise.

As with any other specialisation, teaching is a vocation, open only to those who are truly capable of discharging its functions.

Whoever gives knowledge to a fool loses it
And who keeps it from the deserving does wrong.

Right time, right place, right people equals success.
Wrong time, wrong place, wrong people equals most of the real human history.

One should not pray if that prayer is vanity.

Service
I will not serve God like a labourer, in expectation of my wages.

Rabia el-Adawia.

That which is given free is never knowledge. It may be information ... but knowledge does not come in that manner.

Study the assumptions behind your actions. Then study the assumptions behind your assumptions.

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.

Greed harms you: generosity helps you. This is why it has been said: 'Greed is the mother of incapacity'.

Sufism is experiential

A Sufi school comes into being in order to flourish and disappear, not to leave traces in mechanical ritual, or anthropologically survivals.

A short time in the presence of the Friends (the Sufis) is better than a hundred years' sincere, obedient dedication.

Eat what you desire, but dress like other people.

Saying of the Prophet
Desire
Desire not the world, and God will love you. Desire not what others have, and they will love you.

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.

Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Intellectual: One who knows no craft.

The chicken had his wish, and was magically transformed into a fox. Then he found that he could not digest grain.

People who have fallacious objectives are like the barren soil. The flowers grow from soil which is composed of the right objectives.

A Sufi is one who is not bound by anything nor does he bind anything

What goes into a salt-mine becomes salt.