Idries Shah Quotes

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?

Idries Shah

• People
• Long
• Books
• Wrote
• Studied

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Quotes to Explore

• The oldest books are only just out to those who have not read them.

  

  Samuel Butler
  • Books
  • Read
  • Just

• The hardest thing in the world for a writer is to amass a readership. So many good books come out, and so many good books disappear.

  

  Patrick deWitt
  • World
  • Good
  • Books

• As one grows older one becomes more critical of oneself and less of other people.

  

  Basil Rathbone
  • People
  • More
  • Less

• We want to encourage people to talk to one another.

  

  Kate Middleton
  • People
  • Want
  • Talk

• Some of the most fun people I know are scientists.

  

  Mae Jemison
  • People
  • Fun
  • Know

• I think it's a mistake to try to pin down one particular reason for a person's personality. Don't we all, for many reasons, act differently in different circumstances and with different people?

  

  Gary Frank
  • People
  • Different
  • Think

• I think bad politics are incredibly dangerous, so it's important to make sure that people are communicating well. Culture and morale are super important. It's best to not force it, but let it happen organically and genuinely.

  

  Aaron Levie
  • People
  • Important
  • Bad

• Every story I write adds to me a little, changes me a little, forces me to reexamine an attitude or belief, causes me to research and learn, helps me to understand people and grow.

  

  Octavia E. Butler
  • People
  • Attitude
  • Changes

• There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.

  

  W. Clement Stone
  • People
  • Positive
  • Attitude

• I read books. Remember those? I read them, on paper.

  

  Frances McDormand
  • Remember
  • Books
  • Paper

• People are really talkative in New York. Someone always comes up to me and says 'Hi' during the day.

  

  Lana Del Rey
  • People
  • Up
  • Day

• Of course we wish that more people involved in the leak of my true CIA identity had been prosecuted, but the system worked.

  

  Valerie Plame
  • People
  • True
  • Wish

• I was a writer for hire. I wrote to pay the bills.

  

  Damien Chazelle
  • Writer
  • Pay
  • Wrote

• I don't want to privatise part of the parliament, like some people in Russia.

  

  Victor Pinchuk
  • People
  • Want
  • Russia

• I think, initially, working on your own is really great because it allows you to just be really free and not worry about how things are perceived or if people are going to think you're an idiot. And once that becomes ingrained, at least for me, I think I'll feel really comfortable to work with other people and still feel that same freedom.

  

  K. Flay
  • People
  • Work
  • Great

• Crazy old people are our entire source of polling information.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • People
  • Crazy
  • Information

• I would say that my fatal flaw, as a human being, is that I need people to like me, and if they don't like me, I will obsess over it - and try to change my personality until they like me - even if they don't like me for reasons that have nothing to do with me, and even if they're strangers.

  

  Damon Lindelof
  • People
  • Change
  • Personality

• I always try to put something personal on my albums just to give people out there a little piece of my history and how I got where I am and who I am.

  

  Randy Houser
  • People
  • History
  • Albums

• Most of the albums that have taken long have been related to illness and fatigue or producer problems.

  

  David Coverdale Whitesnake
  • Long
  • Taken

• I don't think the process of writing books is in any way sensible. It's not logical, and it's not reasonable. I do write very fast, and I just do it in a binge. Other people binge-drink; I binge-write.

  

  Kerry Greenwood
  • People
  • Writing

• Here is Mike Wallace, who is visible to the public, and I have been watching him since the early '50s. Smoking up a storm and insulting his guests and being absolutely wonderfully evil and charming too.

  

  Christopher Plummer
  • Up
  • Evil
  • Storm

• Children today will grow up taking for granted that an African-American or a woman can, yes, become the president of the United States.

  

  Hillary Clinton
  • Children
  • Woman
  • President

• The opposite of a truth, is a falsehood; but the opposite of a profound truth...may be another profound truth. It either is or is not August...if I assert it's August when it isn't--simply false; but if I say that life is pain, that is true, profoundly so; so, too, that life is joy; the more profound the statement, the more reversible the deep truths are sedimented in syntax, the terms can be reversed...

  

  Ben Lerner
  • Truth
  • Pain
  • Joy

• 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?

  

  Idries Shah
  • People
  • Long
  • Books