Best 571 quotes of Idries Shah on MyQuotes

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.

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

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.

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

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

An egocentric pessimist is a person who thinks he hasn't changed, but that other people are behaving worse than before.

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.

A real secret is something which only one person knows.

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.

Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.

But one may say something and yet not be able to do it. Try, for instance, lifting yourself up by the bootstraps.

Christian scholars often say that Sufi theories are close to those of Christianity. Many Moslems maintain that they are essentially derived from Islam. The resemblance of many Sufi ideas to those of several religious and esoteric systems are sometimes taken as evidence of derivation. The Islamic interpretation is that religion is of one origin, differences being due to local or historical causes.

Do not try to be humble: learn humility.

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.

Effort makes some great men famous. Even greater effort enables other great men to remain unknown.

Enemies are often former or potential friends who have been denied - or think that they have been denied - something.

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

Exercise power by means of kindness, and you may be causing more damage than you could by cruelty. Neither approach is correct.

From imperial, economic and ideological causes, many cultures are the inheritors, and hence the prisoners, of attitudes of scorn and disdain for other faiths – outlooks which are not ennobling to anyone.

From time to time ponder whether you are unconsciously saying: 'Truth is what I happen to be thinking at this moment.

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.

If a pot can multiply. One day Nasrudin lent his cooking pots to a neighbour, who was giving a feast. The neighbour returned them, together with one extra one – a very tiny pot. 'What is this?' asked Nasrudin. 'According to law, I have given you the offspring of your property which was born when the pots were in my care,' said the joker. Shortly afterwards Nasrudin borrowed his neighbour's pots, but did not return them. The man came round to get them back. 'Alas!' said Nasrudin, 'they are dead. We have established, have we not, that pots are mortal?'.

If, from time to time, you give up expectation, you will be able to perceive what it is you are getting.

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?

If you want to strengthen an enemy and make him exult - hate him.

If you are uninterested in what I say, there's an end to it. If you like what I say, please try to understand which previous influences have made you like it. If you like some of the things I say, and dislike others, you could try to understand why. If you dislike all I say, why not try to find out what formed your attitude?

If you can turn a murderer into a mere thief, you are making progress.

If your desire for 'good' is based on greed, it is not good, but greed.

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!

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.

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.

It is not only a matter of not caring who knows - it is also a matter of knowing who cares.

It is the message, not the man, which is important to the Sufis.

Like the bat, the Sufi is asleep to 'things of the day' - the familiar struggle for existence which the ordinary man finds all-important - and vigilant while others are asleep. In other words, he keeps awake the spiritual attention dormant in others. That 'mankind sleeps in a nightmare of unfulfillment' is a commonplace of Sufi literature

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.

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.

Meditation - Before you learn how to meditate, you must unlearn what you think meditation might be.

One can give or withhold in a manner far more effective, sophisticated, useful, which is quite invisible to people who think that giving or withholding is done by external assessment. If you seek some mark of favour or 'promotion', know that you are not ready for it. Progress comes through capacity to learn, and is irresistible. Nobody can stand between you and knowledge if you are fit for it.

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.

Opinion is usually something which people have when they lack comprehensive information.

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.

People used to play with toys. Now the toys play with them.

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.

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?

Premature independence is the daughter of conceit.

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.

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

Scholars of the East and West have heroically consecrated their whole working lives to making available, by means of their own disciplines, Sufi literary and philosophical material to the world at large. In many cases they have faithfully recorded the Sufis' own reiteration that the Way of the Sufis cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning.

Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.

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