Quotes from Idries Shah

When Fortune knocks, open the door,' they say. But why should one make fortune knock, by keeping the door shut?

Laziness is always your fault. It is the sign that a man has persevered in uselessness for too long.

Saying of the Prophet Helping others I order you to assist any oppressed person, whether he is a Muslim or not.

A Better Beard that Yours. 'All true devotees wear a beard,' said the Imam to his audience. 'Show me a thick and lustrous beard and I'll show you a true believer!' 'My goat has a beard far bushier and longer than yours,' replied Nasrudin. 'Does that mean he is a better Muslim than you?

Advice is priceless: when it becomes interference it is preposterous.

If your desire for 'good' is based on greed, it is not good, but greed.

Because there is a word for perfection, people will always imagine that they know it.

Saying of the Prophet The Judge A man appointed to be a judge has been killed without a knife.

Saying of the Prophet Practice Who are the learned? Those who put into practice what they know.

What can you do with a person who says that he is absolutely uncertain about everything, and that he is absolutely certain about that?

People cannot handle prejudice because they try to deal with the symptom. Prejudice is the symptom, wrong assumptions are the cause. 'Prejudice is the daughter of assumption.

EPITAPH OF JALALUDIN RUMI When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men.

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.

The stupidest man I ever met had a favourite saying. It was: 'What do you think I am, stupid, or something?

To be a Sufi is to detach from fixed ideas and from preconceptions; and not to try to avoid what is your lot.

The institution of teachership is there for this reason, that the learner must learn how to learn.

Prescribing hard work for the soft, or easy work for the hardy, is generally nonsense. What is always needed in any aim is right effort, right time, right people, right materials.

A man is deficient in understanding until he perceives that there is a whole cycle of evolution possible within himself: repeating endlessly, offering opportunities for personal development.

No practice exists in isolation.

There is a Persian proverb: 'To test that which has been tested is ignorance.' To try to test something without the means of testing is even worse.

If you do not understand, you cannot love. You can only imagine that you love.

Denial and affirmation are games which people play. There are people who deny that they are capable of denying, and who would insist that people do not insist.

One of the great Sufis said: 'A saint is a saint unless he knows that he is one.

For every Pharoah there is a Moses.