Idries Shah Quotes

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

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

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

Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.

You must empty out the dirty water before you fill the pitcher with clean.

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.

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),

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

You need not wonder whether you should have an unreliable person as a friend. An unreliable person is nobody's friend.

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.

The sufis believe that they can experience something more complete.

Real generosity is anonymous to the extent that a man should be prepared even to be considered ungenerous rather than explain it to others.

Knowledge is something which you can use. Belief is something which uses you.

Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun?

Deep in the sea are riches beyond compare. But if you seek safety, it is on the shore.

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.

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

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

Sayings of the Prophet Trust: Trust in God – but tie your camel first.

The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk.

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.

The union of the mind and intuition which brings about illumination, and the development which the Sufis seek, is based upon love.

When people have a hard task to do - one which stretches them - they become less concerned with trivial matters.

One cannot learn from someone whom one distrusts.

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?

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

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!

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.

The human being, whether he realises it or not, is trusting someone or something every moment of the day.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

You yourself are your own barrier – rise from within it.

When people believe that the form is more important than the Truth, they will not find truth, but will stay with form.

A real secret is something which only one person knows.

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

Inner Knowledge -- You want to become wise in one lesson: First become a real human being.

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

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.

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.

Do not try to be humble: learn humility.

Worry is a cloud which rains destruction.

One day we will all wear a garment which has no pockets...

Anybody or anything may stand between you and knowledge if you are unfit for it.

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.

To 'see both sides' of a problem is the surest way to prevent its complete solution. Because there are always more than two sides.

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

They say: 'Seek wisdom while you have the strength, or you may lose the strength without gaining wisdom.

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.

Knowledge is not gained, it is there all the time. It is the "veils" which have to be dissolved in the mind.

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

The impatient man is his own enemy; he slams the door on his own progress.

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

It is not 'Have I got a chance?' It is more often: 'Have I seen my chance?

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

Saying of the Prophet Understanding Speak to everyone in accordance with his degree of understanding.

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

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

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

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

When you realise the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge.

The word 'choice' is a fraud while people choose only what they have been taught to choose.

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

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

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

Wisdom is when you understand what, previously, at best you only knew.

Remembering and Forgetting 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.

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

History is not usually what has happened. History is what some people have thought to be significant.

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.

When Fortune knocks, open the door,' they say. But why should one make fortune knock, by keeping the door shut?

The person that you feel yourself to be, according to the Sufis, is a false person, which has no true reality.

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

Teaching: One hour's teaching is better than a whole night of prayer. Saying of the Prophet

The sight of God in woman is the most perfect of all." Ibn Arabi.

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.

My father used to tell me that stories offer the listener a chance to escape but, more importantly, he said, they provide people with a chance to maximize their minds. Suspend ordinary constraints, allow the imagination to be freed, and we are charged with the capability of heighetned thought. Learn to use your eyes as if they are your ears, he said, and you become connected with the ancient heritage of man, a dream world for the waking mind.

Advice is priceless: when it becomes interference it is preposterous.

Laziness is always your fault. It is the sign that a man has persevered in uselessness for too long.

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.

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.

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.

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

What can you do with a person who says that he is absolutely uncertain about everything, and that he is absolutely certain about that?

The stupidest man I ever met had a favourite saying. It was: 'What do you think I am, stupid, or something?

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

To copy a virtue in another is more copying than it is virtue. Try to learn what that virtue is based upon.

The institution of teachership is there for this reason, that the learner must learn how to learn.

Saying of the Prophet The Judge A man appointed to be a judge has been killed without a knife.

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

Saying of the Prophet Helping others I order you to assist any oppressed person, whether he is a Muslim or not.

Saying of the Prophet Practice Who are the learned? Those who put into practice what they know.

To be a Sufi is to detach from fixed ideas and from preconceptions; and not to try to avoid what is your lot.

If you do not understand, you cannot love. You can only imagine that you love.

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.

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?

In the modern world we are in a paradoxical situation; because although in theory man knows that he can extend his attention to something and then remove it, he very often does not do so. In many areas he does not look at something and then detach from it, and look at something else. Once he has found something to interest himself in, he cannot detach himself from it efficiently, and therefore he cannot be objective. Note that, in most if not all languages, we have words like 'objectivity' which leads people to imagine that they have it, or can easily use it. That is equivalent (in reality if not in theory) to saying 'I know the word “gold”, so I am rich.