Quotes from Idries Shah

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

If you want to make an ordinary man happy, or think that he is happy, give him money, power, flattery, gifts, honours. If you want to make a wise man happy - improve yourself!

A man who believes the word of a donkey in preference to my word does not deserve to be lent anything.

A great deal of thought is only a substitute for the thoughts that the individual would really find useful at the time.

Right time, right place, right people equals success. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong people equals most of the real human history.

Saying of the Prophet.Lies, promises, trustHe is not of mine who lies, breaks a promise or fails in his trust.

That which is capable of perceiving objective reality is, in Sufism, the human soul (ruh).

Sufism is, in fact, not a mystical system, not a religion, but a body of knowledge.

When prayer, rituals and ascetic life are just a means of self-indulgence, they are harmful rather than beneficial.

When you realize the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge.

Careful preparation is necessary before people can perceive something which is there all the time.

The Sufis, ' runs the saying, 'understand with their hearts what the most learned scholars cannot understand with their minds

However fast you run, or however skilfully, you can't run away from your own feet.

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

One of the tragedies of modern times is that people have come to believe that something said by someone in the past, perhaps for illustrative or provocation purposes, actually represents that person's beliefs at the time.

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

Generosity is also marked by doing what one says one will do.

Sufism is experiential

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.

If I knew what two and two were – I would say Four!

The colour of the water seems to be the colour of the glass into which it has been poured'.

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.

A generous person may not have wisdom: but, unlike others, he has the means to gain it.

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