Idries Shah Quotes
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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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But one may say something and yet not be able to do it. Try, for instance, lifting yourself up by the bootstraps.
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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 Way of the Sufis cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning.
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Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun?
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If, from time to time, you give up expectation, you will be able to perceive what it is you are getting.
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Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.
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When you realize the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge.
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Advice is priceless: when it becomes interference it is preposterous.
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The impatient man is his own enemy; he slams the door on his own progress.
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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 secret of Sufism is that it has no secret at all'.
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... when we are talking about 'Christians' and 'Moslems' we must first make sure that we are talking about people who have an idea, which should be more or less correct, as to what the other is supposed to believe and what he is expected to do as a consequence of that belief.
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People used to play with toys. Now the toys play with them.
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The chicken had his wish, and was magically transformed into a fox. Then he found that he could not digest grain.
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A generous person may not have wisdom: but, unlike others, he has the means to gain it.
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Trying to force something is the best way to stop it happening.
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The colour of the water seems to be the colour of the glass into which it has been poured'.
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No practice exists in isolation.
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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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Right time, right place, right people equals success. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong people equals most of the real human history.
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Talking about straws and camels' backs is just one way of approaching things. If you have enough camels, no backs need be broken.
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The human being, whether he realises it or not, is trusting someone or something every moment of the day.
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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.