Idries Shah Quotes - Page 3

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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

  Taken, Giving, Want

  Idries Shah (1983). “Reflections”, p.141, Octagon Press Ltd

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

  Idries Shah

  People, Significant, Happened

  Idries Shah (1983). “Reflections”, p.9, Octagon Press Ltd

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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

  Important, Firsts, Said

  Idries Shah (1983). “Reflections”, p.60, Octagon Press Ltd

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• 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.

  Idries Shah

  Attitude, Culture, Causes

  Idries Shah (1974). “The Elephant in the Dark”, p.11, Octagon Press Ltd

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• 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?

  Idries Shah

  Attitude, Trying, Why Not

  Idries Shah (1983). “Reflections”, p.10, Octagon Press Ltd

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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

  Caring, Knowing, Who Cares

  Idries Shah (1983). “Reflections”, p.44, Octagon Press Ltd

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• When prayer, rituals and ascetic life are just a means of self-indulgence, they are harmful rather than beneficial. This is quite obvious to people nowadays, when it is widely recognised that fixations are not the same as valuable and laudable observances. One should not pray if that prayer is vanity; rituals are wrong when they provide lower satisfactions, like emotional stimulus instead of enlightenment; he or she should not be an ascetic who is only enjoying it.

  Idries Shah

  Prayer, Mean, Emotional

  Idries Shah (1991). “Seeker After Truth”, p.22, Octagon Press Ltd

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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

  Wise, Book, Ass

  Idries Shah (1983). “Reflections”, p.81, Octagon Press Ltd

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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

  Glasses, Water, Colour

  Idries Shah (1979). “The World of the Sufi: an anthology of writings about Sufis and their work”, Ishk Book Service

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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

  Wise, Powerful, Names

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

  Idries Shah

  Men, Important, Messages

  Idries Shah (1999). “The Sufis”, p.57, Octagon Press Ltd

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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

  Love Is, Beloved, Sufi

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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

  Taken, Meat, Lions

  Idries Shah (1983). “Reflections”, p.72, Octagon Press Ltd

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• A real secret is something which only one person knows.

  Idries Shah

  Real, Secret, Persons

  Idries Shah (1983). “Reflections”, p.122, Octagon Press Ltd

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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

  Should Have, Needs, Wonder

  Idries Shah (1983). “Reflections”, p.57, Octagon Press Ltd

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• One cannot learn from someone whom one distrusts.

  Idries Shah

  Distrust

  Idries Shah (1990). “Sufi Thought and Action”, p.10, Octagon Press Ltd

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• 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.

  Idries Shah

  Book, Philosophical, Mean

  Idries Shah (1999). “The Sufis”, p.9, Octagon Press Ltd

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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

  People, Needs, Information

  Idries Shah (1983). “Reflections”, p.11, Octagon Press Ltd

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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

  Educational, Thinking, People

  Idries Shah (2017). “A Perfumed Scorpion”, p.11, ISF Publishing

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

  Idries Shah

  Progress, Thieves, Murderer

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

  Idries Shah

  Heart, Learned Person, Listening

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• 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.

  Idries Shah

  Thinking, Assessment, People

  Idries Shah (1978). “Learning how to Learn: Psychology and Spirituality in the Sufi Way”, p.159, Octagon Press Ltd

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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

  May, Wonderful, Absence

  Idries Shah (1983). “Reflections”, p.18, Octagon Press Ltd

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• The secret of Sufism is that it has no secret at all'.

  Idries Shah

  Secret, Sufism

  Idries Shah (1978). “Learning how to Learn: Psychology and Spirituality in the Sufi Way”, p.64, Octagon Press Ltd

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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

  Teacher, Convince Us, Different

  Idries Shah (1990). “Sufi Thought and Action”, p.5, Octagon Press Ltd

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