Quotes from Idries Shah

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

Almost every day I am reminded of Saadi's reflection that there is no senseless tyranny like that of subordinates.

And there are many people, both Moslem and Christian, who have a good grasp of each others0 conceptions of surrender to God an other principles. But the widespread existence of bias, misinformation and lack of knowledge (…) militate against the effectiveness of dialogue, (…) by the most subtle and one of the most effective of instruments, the subconscious, almost the subliminal, introduction of hostility.

From imperial, economic and ideological causes, many cultures are the inheritors, and hence the prisoners, of attitudes of scorn and disdain for other faiths – outlooks which are not ennobling to anyone.

Your medicine is in you, and you do not observe it. Your ailment is from yourself, and you do not register it.

All life is struggle, says the Sufi, but the struggle must be a coherent one. The average man is struggling against too many things all at once. If a confused and incomplete person makes money, or becomes a professional success, he still remains a confused and incomplete person.

The important place held by Jesus among the world's six hundred million Moslems... and the agreement of both religions about the necessity for surrender to God as the means of salvation, thus makes it comparatively easy for a Moslem to address himself to Christians: the sympathy and the history are already there.

Saying of the Prophet Love Do you think you love your Creator? Love your fellow-creature first.

As Ibn Arabi says: 'Absolute existence is the source of all existence'.

action is in fact knowledge in operation. Right action stems from right knowledge. Right knowledge is acquired through the teacher.

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

Whoever is to be wise despises himself. Only the ignorant trust their own judgement.

You have come a long way, and you do not know it. You have a long way to go, and you do know what that means.

Rumi speaks of people who rely upon the written word as sometimes being no more than donkeys laden with books.

Day and Night The night is long: do not shorten it by sleep. The day is fair: do not darken it with wrongdoing.

The means through which people may perceive Truth have forms; Truth has no form.

Generosity is also marked by doing what one says one will do. Saadi teaches: 'when the generous promise, they perform

Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza. Worry: Something to make you unnecessarily ill.

EXPECTATION If, from time to time, you give up expectation, you will be able to perceive what it is you are getting.

Sufi Teachers are not, as you might hope, people who make you feel peace and harmony.

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

You will always have doubts, but only discover them at a useful time for your weakness to point them out.

Most of the supposedly Sufi organizations, exercises and "orders" are in fact only of archaeological interest.

One should not pray if that prayer is vanity.