Idries Shah Quotes
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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.
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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.
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When people have a hard task to do - one which stretches them - they become less concerned with trivial matters.
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The Path is not to be found anywhere except in human service
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From time to time ponder whether you are unconsciously saying: 'Truth is what I happen to be thinking at this moment.
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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.
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Effort makes some great men famous. Even greater effort enables other great men to remain unknown.
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When Fortune knocks, open the door,' they say. But why should one make fortune knock, by keeping the door shut?
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The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk.
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Knowledge is not gained, it is there all the time. It is the "veils" which have to be dissolved in the mind.
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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.
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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.
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If you want to strengthen an enemy and make him exult - hate him.
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The union of the mind and intuition which brings about illumination, and the development which the Sufis seek, is based upon love.
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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!
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If you can turn a murderer into a mere thief, you are making progress.
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A real secret is something which only one person knows.
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Anybody or anything may stand between you and knowledge if you are unfit for it.
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The stupidest man I ever met had a favourite saying. It was: 'What do you think I am, stupid, or something?
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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.
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The impatient man is his own enemy; he slams the door on his own progress.
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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.
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People used to play with toys. Now the toys play with them.
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Learn to be as analytical about things of which you are credulous as you are of those which you criticise.