Idries Shah Quotes

Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaA fool:,A man trying to be honest with the dishonest.

~ Idries Shah

In a village where everyone has only one leg, the biped will hop about more lamely than anyone else, if he knows what is good for him.

~ Idries Shah

One day we will all wear a garment which has no pockets...

~ Idries Shah

Wisdom is when you understand what, previously, at best you only knew.

~ Idries Shah

SAYING OF SHEIKH ZIAUDIN:Self-justification is worse than the original offence.

~ Idries Shah

It is not Sufism if it does not perform its function for you. A cloak is no longer a cloak if it does not keep a man warm.

~ Idries Shah

If wine is the enemy of religion, I shall devour the enemy of religion.

~ Idries Shah

The function of a nutrient is to become transmuted, not to leave unaltered traces.

~ Idries Shah

Haste is from the Devil.

~ Idries Shah

Fettered feet in the presence of friends is better than living in a garden with strangers.

~ Idries Shah

If you really want to learn, do not be surprised if someone tries to teach you. And do not lightly reject the method.

~ Idries Shah

Most people, whatever their opinions and protestations, do not want to learn.

~ Idries Shah

One of the basic Sufi needs is to enable people to see themselves as they really are.

~ Idries Shah

The Sufi teacher’s mission is to be in the service of those who can learn.

~ Idries Shah

The teacher works in accordance with the prospects of his students and the possibility of maintaining the community of Sufis.

~ Idries Shah

The Sufis regard systems which treat everyone alike as mechanical and degenerate.

~ Idries Shah

The candle burned the moth:But soon it will vanish in its own fat.

~ Idries Shah

Yes, the world is an illusion. But Truth is always being shown there.

~ Idries Shah

If you want special illumination, look upon the human face:See clearly within laughter the Essence of Ultimate Truth.

~ Idries Shah

The question of divine knowledge is so deep that it is really known only to those who have it.

~ Idries Shah

It is your duty to do your best. It is not, however, your birth-right to prevail.

~ Idries Shah

A man must be a Solomon before his magical ring will work

~ Idries Shah

Any society which enjoins its members to adhere to both of these (politeness and truth) is a fraud.

~ Idries Shah

A man must be a Salomon before his magical ring will work. (Hafiz)

~ Idries Shah

Imagination blocks you like a bolt on a door. Burn that bar. (Rumi)

~ Idries Shah

Our objective is to achieve, by the understanding of the Origin, the Knowledge which comes through experience.

~ Idries Shah

ScrapsThe scraps from the meal of the Emir are larger than the gifts of halwa from the merchant. Timur Fazil

~ Idries Shah

As swords were designed to killThey did well to make them tongue-shaped.(Anwar-i-Suhaili)

~ Idries Shah

Superior experience and knowledge will be made available to a man or woman in exact accordance with his worth, capacity and earning of it

~ Idries Shah

Man (and woman) has an infinite capacity for self-development. Equally, he has an infinite capacity for self-destruction. A human being may be clinically alive and yet, despite all appearances, spiritually dead.

~ Idries Shah

The decline in the influence of religion has been due, in the main, not to religion itself, but to the very shallowness of many practitioners. People who are indoctrinated and mistake implanted obsession for faith, are themselves destroyers of the very thing which they imagine themselves called upon to try to protect.In fact, of course, they have no such call: and their capacity to protect something which is other than their imaginings makes for a comical situation.

~ Idries Shah

Three ThingsThree things cannot be retrieved:The arrow once sped from the bowThe word spoken in hasteThe missed opportunity.(Ali the Lion, Caliph of Islam, son-in-law of Mohammed the Prophet)

~ Idries Shah

Opinion is usually something which people have when they lack comprehensive information.

~ Idries Shah

Knowledge is something which you can use.Belief is something which uses you.

~ Idries Shah

Religion, for instance, cannot be accepted or rejected out of hand, until the student knows exactly what religion means.

~ Idries Shah

People in this civilization are starving in the middle of plenty. This is a civilization that is going down, not because it hasn't got the knowledge that would save it, but because nobody will use the knowledge.

~ Idries Shah

Knowledge cannot be attained except through humility.

~ Idries Shah

Knowledge gives nothing to a man until he gives everything to it.

~ Idries Shah

Sufis (the name for the realised individual, not the learner or follower) are reunited with objective Reality and Unity.

~ Idries Shah

Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaFlattery:One of the most promising of businesses: always brisk.

~ Idries Shah