Idries Shah Quotes
Top 100 wise famous quotes and sayings 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.
You may have forgotten the Way:
But those who came before
Did not forget you.
Saying of Master Bahaudin Naqshband of Bokhara
But those who came before
Did not forget you.
Saying of Master Bahaudin Naqshband of Bokhara
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.
Do not tell your secrets to everyone in this headquarters, Earth. We have surveyed it well. There was nobody to whom to entrust secrets.
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
Your medicine is in you, and you do not observe it. Your ailment is from yourself, and you do not register it.
The people of the world have a fixed destiny. But the spiritually developed receive what is "not" in their destiny.
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.
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.
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.
Disappointment cannot exist without expectation. The expected apricot is never as sweet when it reaches the mouth.
Why do people always wonder whether books are any good, without wondering whether they are themselves in a state to profit from them?
EPITAPH OF JALALUDIN RUMI
When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men.
When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men.
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.
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.
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.
SENTENCES OF THE KHAJAGAN
RUDBARI : Heart to heart is an essential means of passing on the secrets of the Path.
RUDBARI : Heart to heart is an essential means of passing on the secrets of the Path.
Is your division of Understanding into Greater and Lesser common to all Sufis? Nothing which is put into words is common to all Sufis.
Sufis aim to refine human consciousness. This is Sufi mysticism: not mystification or magic, but a specific Path.
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
Your medicine is in you, and you do not observe it. Your ailment is from yourself, and you do not register it.
Hazrat Ali
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.
Right time, right place, right people equals success.
Wrong time, wrong place, wrong people equals most of the real human history.
Wrong time, wrong place, wrong people equals most of the real human history.
That which is given free is never knowledge. It may be information ... but knowledge does not come in that manner.
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'.
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.
Saying of the Prophet
Desire
Desire not the world, and God will love you. Desire not what others have, and they will love you.
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.
Anger
You ask for a piece of advice. I tell you: 'Do not get angry.' He is strong who can withhold anger.
The chicken had his wish, and was magically transformed into a fox. Then he found that he could not digest grain.