Top 104 Quotes & Sayings by Idries Shah - Page 2

Do not try to be humble: learn humility.

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

Learn to be as analytical about things of which you are credulous as you are of those which you criticise.

We view Sufism not as an ideology that molds people to the right way of belief or action, but as an art or science that can exert a beneficial influence on individuals and societies, in accordance with the needs of those individuals and societies ... Sufi study and development gives one capacities one did not have before.

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.

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.

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.

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

Like the bat, the Sufi is asleep to 'things of the day' - the familiar struggle for existence which the ordinary man finds all-important - and vigilant while others are asleep. In other words, he keeps awake the spiritual attention dormant in others. That 'mankind sleeps in a nightmare of unfulfillment' is a commonplace of Sufi literature

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Talking about straws and camels' backs is just one way of approaching things. If you have enough camels, no backs need be broken.

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

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?

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

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

No practice exists in isolation.

Premature independence is the daughter of conceit.

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

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

When the Higher Man does something worthy of admiration, it is an evidence of his Mastership, not the object of it.

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

Christian scholars often say that Sufi theories are close to those of Christianity. Many Moslems maintain that they are essentially derived from Islam. The resemblance of many Sufi ideas to those of several religious and esoteric systems are sometimes taken as evidence of derivation. The Islamic interpretation is that religion is of one origin, differences being due to local or historical causes.

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

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.

People who speak or act in an ordinary fashion are most likely to be those who have been the recipients of higher experiences. But because they do not rage around, wild-eyed, people think that they are very ordinary folk and therefore not aware of anything unknown to the general run of man.

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

An egocentric pessimist is a person who thinks he hasn't changed, but that other people are behaving worse than before.

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

The main problem is that most commentators are accustomed to thinking of spiritual schools as 'systems', which are more or less alike, and which depend upon dogma and ritual: and especially upon repetition and the application of continual and standardised pressures upon their followers.The Sufi way, except in degenerate forms which are not to be classified as Sufic, is entirely different from this.

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.

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

It is not enough that there is a collection of people with the common aim of working in unison towards an objective... Aspiration and desire only are not enough.

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

The sufis believe that they can experience something more complete.

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.

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.

... 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.

Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.

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