A Quote by Idries Shah

You are adrift while you still think that a means is an end. — © Idries Shah
You are adrift while you still think that a means is an end.
You think the end justifies the means, however vile. I tell you: the end is the means by which you achieve it. Today's step is tomorrow's life. Great ends cannot be attained by base means. You've proved that in all your social upheavals. The meanness and inhumanity of the means make you mean and inhuman and make the end unattainable.
So I am praying while not knowing how to pray. I am resting while feeling restless, at peace while tempted, safe while still anxious, surrounded by a cloud of light while still in darkness, in love while still doubting.
Ted Kennedy says that our policy in Iraq is adrift. Hmmm. Maybe like a car adrift in the water after its has gone over a bridge?
Propaganda is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. If the means achieves the end then the means is good... the new Ministry has no other aim than to unite the nation behind the ideal of the national revolution.
We are so anxious to achieve some particular end that we never pay attention to the psycho-physical means whereby that end is to be gained. So far as we are concerned, any old means is good enough. But the nature of the universe is such that ends can never justify the means. On the contrary, the means always determine the end.
I was adrift for a while. I worked as a substitute teacher; I sold cars.
The error in the art-genre of Opera consists herein: a Means of expression (Music) has been made the end, while the End of expression (the Drama) has been made a means.
To many forms of life of our northern lands, winter means a long sleep; to others, it means what it means to many fortunate human beings - travels in warm climes. To still others, who again have their human prototypes, it means a struggle, more or less fierce, to keep soul and body together; while to many insect forms, it means death.
The world's pretty big. I have to see everything, do everything, eat everything. You'll never be as young as you are right now, so while your legs still work, while you still have the breath in your lungs, go. At the end of our lives, we only regret the things we didn't do.
Democrats view elections as a means to an end, while Republicans view an election as an end in itself.
I want us to organize, to tell the personal stories that create empathy, which is the most revolutionary emotion. The truth of the mater is that hierarchy and violence can't be remedied by more hierarchy and violence. The end doesn't justify the means, the means we choose decide the end we get. The means are the end.
If the spirit of their intercourse were still the same after their coming together as it had been when they were living apart,' Aristotle writes, their association can't really be considered a polis, or political community. 'A polis is not an association for residence on a common site, or for the sake of preventing mutual injustice and easing exchange.' While these conditions are necessary to a polis, they are not sufficient. 'The end and purpose of a polis is the good life, and the institutions of social life are means to that end.
As society is only possible if everyone, while living his own life, at the same time helps others to live; if every individual is simultaneously means and end; if each individual's well-being is simultaneously the condition necessary to the well-being of others, it is evident that the contrast between I and thou, means and end, automatically is overcome.
I think if people value democracy, they had damn well better get out and exercise their right to vote while their vote still means something.
If you FAIL, never give up because F.A.I.L. means "First Attempt in Learning". END is not the end; in fact E.N.D. means "Effort Never Dies". If you get NO as an answer, remember N.O. means "Next Opportunity".
[Anne, commenting on city life] "I think I would probably come to the conclusion that I'd like it for a while... but in the end, I'd still prefer the sound of the wind in the firs across the brook more than the tinkling of crystal.
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