Wisdom Quotes

Now that I have found thee, I know that in the first step I took, I moved away from thee.

~ Idries Shah

Hazrat Ali, in a saying attributed to him, says: ‘Man is in disguise, covered by his tongue’.

~ Idries Shah

A short time in the presence of the Friends (the Sufis) is better than a hundred years’ sincere, obedient dedication.

~ Idries Shah

Abu-Yaqub al-Susi: 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.

~ Idries Shah

Better to quarrel with a friend than to support enemies.

~ Idries Shah

The mine is always bigger than the gem.

~ Idries Shah

Nobody can stand between you and knowledge if you are fit for it.

~ Idries Shah

Truth has no form.

~ Idries Shah

Sayings of the ProphetTrust: Trust in God – but tie your camel first.

~ Idries Shah

One lie will keep out forty truths.

~ Idries Shah

Whoever gives knowledge to a fool loses itAnd who keeps it from the deserving does wrong.

~ Idries Shah

ServiceI will not serve God like a labourer, in expectation of my wages.Rabia el-Adawia.

~ Idries Shah

Sufism is therefore not 'Do as I say and not as I do', or even 'Do as I do', but 'Experience and you will know'.

~ Idries Shah

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.

~ Idries Shah

The people of the world have a fixed destiny. But the spiritually developed receive what is “not” in their destiny.

~ Idries Shah

Voice in the nightA voice whispered to me last night: 'There is no such thing as a voice whispering in the night!

~ Idries Shah

As the Eastern saying, by the sage Hilali, has it, 'one person who understands is worth a hundred who merely obey a custom.

~ Idries Shah

WisdomSufian said: 'The wisdom which is invisible but which sustains is a hundred times better than the appearance of wisdom, for that has itself to be sustained.

~ Idries Shah

An intelligent enemy,' he would say, stroking his beard as if it were a bristly pet, 'rather than a foolish friend.' Or, 'He learnt the language of pigeons, and forgot his own.' Or, the favourite of Jan Fishan Khan: 'Nothing is what it seems.

~ Tahir Shah

In the modern world we are in a paradoxical situation; because although in theory man knows that he can extend his attention to something and then remove it, he very often does not do so. In many areas he does not look at something and then detach from it, and look at something else.Once he has found something to interest himself in, he cannot detach himself from it efficiently, and therefore he cannot be objective. Note that, in most if not all languages, we have words like 'objectivity' which leads people to imagine that they have it, or can easily use it. That is equivalent (in reality if not in theory) to saying 'I know the word “gold”, so I am rich.

~ Idries Shah

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.

~ Idries Shah

The Book of Wisdom. Simab said: 'I shall sell the Book of Wisdom for a hundred gold pieces, and some people will say that it is cheap.' Yunus Marmar said to him: 'And I shall give away the key to understanding it, and almost none shall take it, even free of charge.

~ Idries Shah

Saying of the Mulla Nasrudin. If I survive this life without dying, I'll be surprised.

~ Idries Shah

When prayer, rituals and ascetic life are just a means of self-indulgence, they are harmful rather than beneficial. This is quite obvious to people nowadays, when it is widely recognised that fixations are not the same as valuable and laudable observances. One should not pray if that prayer is vanity; rituals are wrong when they provide lower satisfactions, like emotional stimulus instead of enlightenment; he or she should not be an ascetic who is only enjoying it.

~ Idries Shah

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.

~ Idries Shah

You'll have lots of questions to answer as you get older. Who you are. Who you want to be. What you think about things. Like politics. And romances. And whether you'll be able to speak out or keep your mouth shut. It's always a challenge to work out the best way to live your life, and as much as everyone tells you what to do, ultimately how you do things is up to you.

~ Kate Jacobs

If you happen to be white in a white country; pretty according to the dictates of fashion; rich in a country where money is adored, it’s almost impossible to grow up and to grow up honest inside. It is almost impossible. Most people don’t grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging. But to grow up, to take responsibility for the time you take up, and the space you occupy, to honor every living person for his or her humanity, that is to grow up.

~ Maya Angelou

We weep as we witness the dead of a loved one.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

During times of disaster sorrow brings people together in a spirit of friendship, and influences man to recognize the blessings of becoming his brother's keeper.

~ Napoleon Hill

It is but sorrow to be wise when wisdom profits not.

~ Sophocles

That mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true — not true, or undeveloped. With books the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon’s, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe. “All is vanity.” ALL. This wilful world hath not got hold of unchristian Solomon’s wisdom yet.

~ Herman Melville

She refused to be one of those girls who fell for a pretty face that just white-washed a total jack-ass underneath. She could ogle, but she would not fall until she knew he deserved her.

~ Kimberly Kinrade

The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some men have lived long, and lived little. You've done well, and honourably.

~ M. J. Carter

We aren’t afraid of what we can explain.

~ Aspen Matis

I was no longer following a trail. I was learning to follow myself.

~ Aspen Matis

I needed only to allow myself to know what I already knew.

~ Aspen Matis

He understood. In lovesickness we had found a common language.

~ Aspen Matis

Childhood is a wilderness.

~ Aspen Matis

Children believe they are immortal, death is an empty word like the name of a country they’ve never been to on a time-faded map. I wasn’t a child anymore.

~ Aspen Matis

She had wanted me to hold rape inside me like a dark pearl, keep it in there, as it grew, as I grew cramped, as it overtook me as hidden things do. Secrets become lies. I'd carried in every step I took this lie, the shame of it.

~ Aspen Matis