Idries Shah Quotes

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

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

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

The sufis believe that they can experience something more complete.

Three Things Three things cannot be retrieved: The arrow once sped from the bow The word spoken in haste The missed opportunity.

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.

One cannot learn from someone whom one distrusts.

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

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

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.

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?

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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!

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

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.

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 real secret is something which only one person knows.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Do not try to be humble: learn humility.

Worry is a cloud which rains destruction.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not to be greedy is, paradoxically, the highest form of looking after one's true interests.

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

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

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

Many things which are called 'secrets' are only things withheld from people until they can understand or effectively experience them.

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.

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.”

rescribing 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.

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

One of the great Sufis said: 'A saint is a saint unless he knows that he is one.

No surgeon can treat the wounds of the tongue.

The Sufi is 'One who does not care when something is taken from him, but who does not cease to seek for what he has not.

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

Few things are more absurd than wise saws originally designed to inculcate or maintain the social needs of a society long past - when they are applied to today.

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

Learning how to learn involves examining assumptions. Mulla Nasrudin tales very often fulfil this funcition.

The colour of the water seems to be the colour of the glass into which it has been poured'.

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

When the ignorant have become numerous or powerful enough, they have been referred to by a special name. This names is 'the Wise'.

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.

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

You fear tomorrow: yet yesterday is just as dangerous.

None should say : 'I can trust,' or 'I cannot trust' until he is a master of the option, of trusting or not trusting.

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

Great men are great until they know it. Saints are holy until they know it.

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

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

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.

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

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

aying 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 Ink and Blood The ink of the learned is holier than the blood of the martyr.

Saying of the Prophet Truth Speaking the truth to the unjust is the best of holy wars.

Saying of the Prophet Obligation to Learn The pursuit of knowledge is obligatory on every Muslim.

Saying of the Prophet Envy Envy devours good deeds, as a fire devours fuel.

Saying of the Prophet Monkishness No monkery in Islam.

Saying of the Prophet Death Die before your death.

Saying of the Prophet Tasks Whoever makes all his tasks one task, God will help him in his other concerns.

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.

Saying of the Prophet THE PEOPLE It is the people who are God's family.

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

Show me a person who really knows what 'good' is, and I will show you that he almost never uses the word.

Talent is the presence of ability and absence of understanding about the source and operation of knowledge.

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

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?

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

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?”

When a belief becomes more than an instrument, you are lost. You remain lost until you learn what 'belief' is really for.

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

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

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

Remember that greed includes greed for being not greedy.

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

If you seek a teacher, try to become a real student. If you want to be a student, try to find a real teacher.

Only the search for truth is valid, the desire for wisdom the motive. The method is assimilation, not study.

When the human being says: 'It is not true...' He may mean: 'I don't know about it, so I think it is untrue.' Or: 'I don't like it.

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

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

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

Show a man too many camels' bones,or show them to him too often,and he will not be able to recognize a camel when he comes across a live one.

Nobody can stand between you and knowledge if you are fit for it.

If you cannot laugh frequently and genuinely, you have no soul.

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.

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

Saying of the Mulla Nasrudin. If I survive this life without dying, I'll be surprised.

No effort makes a black crow into a white hawk.

Learning without action is like wax without honey.

As the Eastern saying, by the sage Hilali, has it, 'one person who understands is worth a hundred who merely obey a custom.

Sufis are those who have expunged from their minds the human tendencies of envy and enmity.

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.

The Path is not to be found anywhere except in human service.

The Book of Wisdom. Simab said: 'I shall sell the Book of Wisdom for a hundred gold pieces, and some people will say that it is cheap.' Yunus Marmar said to him: 'And I shall give away the key to understanding it, and almost none shall take it, even free of charge.

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

The mine is always bigger than the gem.

Sandals. The Sufi teacher Ghulam-Shah was asked what pattern he used in formulating his courses for disciples. He said: 'Barefoot until you can get sandals, sandals until you can manage boots.

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

The real generosity is when a man does something generous when nobody knows about it.

Trying to force something is the best way to stop it happening.

But the minimum human duty is to serve others: it is no great attainment.

Generosity is also marked by doing what one says one will do.

None meets harm who knows his capacity.

The more wakeful a man is to the things which surround him, the more asleep is he, and his waking is worse than his sleep.

He who knows himself, knows his Lord' means, among other things, that self-deception prevents knowledge.

With enough information, it is almost impossible "not" to predict people's action.

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

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

You are still adrift while you still think that a means is an end.

The donkey which brought you to this door must be dismissed if you want to get through it’.

It is not always a question of the Emperor having no clothes on. Sometimes it is, 'Is that an Emperor at all?

Death If he is a good man, death will be a release; If he is a bad one, it will release others from him.

Voice in the night A voice whispered to me last night: 'There is no such thing as a voice whispering in the night!

It is axiomatic that the attempt to become a Sufi through a desire for personal power as normally understood will not succeed.

Feeling important is a vice, not a virtue, however concealed as participation in something noble.

A loan is the scissors of friendship. A man's own tongue may cut his throat. The cage has no value without the bird.

Neither imagine that you are false, nor lash yourself, for both may be forms of self-indulgence.

There is a saying that, according to what a person's mentality is, even an angel may seem to him to have a devil's face.

One lie will keep out forty truths.

All forms are limited. Some of the limitations are time, place, culture, language.

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

Angels are the powers hidden in the faculties and organs of man

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.

The tongue is the best masseur of furrowed brows.

Patience is bitter, but bears a sweet fruit.

Opportunity's precious, and time is a sword.

Whoever has taught me one letter has made me his slave.

You can perceive a person's aspiration if it is genuine, because this creates a change in the emanations from such a person.

The Way of the Sufis cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning.

None should say: 'I can trust' or 'I cannot trust' until he is a master of the option, of trusting or not trusting.

There is something in man which can detect real love. We rub it out, or muffle it, by substitute-love.

I am the Real, for I have not ceased to be real – through the Real.

Until you can understand illogicality, and the meaningfulness of it, shun the Sufis except for limited, precise, self-evident services.

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

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

If you seek small things to do, and do them well, great things will seek you, and demand to be performed.

He that is purified by love is pure; and he that is absorbed in the Beloved and hath abandoned all else is a Sufi.

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

If you have two shirts, sell one and with the money buy a flower.

You must improve yourself on a higher level if you are to be able to help people, and not just weep over them.