Quotes from Idries Shah

Saying of the Prophet THE PEOPLE It is the people who are God's family. (Muhammad the Prophet)

Remember that greed includes greed for being not greedy.

With enough information, it is almost impossible "not" to predict people's action.

Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.

You say that this society will come to an end, because societies always have done so. I wonder whether they have ended because they were not really societies at all.

if... says: 'Do not be greedy, be generous', you may inwardly interpret this in such a manner that you will develop a greed for generosity

If you give what can be takes, you are not really giving. Take what you are given, not what you want to be given. Take what is given: Give what cannot be taken.

When the human being says: 'It is not true...' He may mean: 'I don't know about it, so I think it is untrue.' Or: 'I don't like it.

What is sometimes thought to be clever is, significantly often, merely an advanced form of foolishness.

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

Sufism, the "secret tradition," is not available on the basis of assumptions which belong to another world, the world of intellect.

Show a man too many camels' bones,or show them to him too often,and he will not be able to recognize a camel when he comes across a live one.

Knowledge cannot be attained except through humility.

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

Opportunity's precious, and time is a sword.

You can perceive a person's aspiration if it is genuine, because this creates a change in the emanations from such a person.

If you will not reprove yourself,' Saadi says, 'you will not welcome reproof from another.

A MOTTO OF THE HUMAN RACE Tell me what to do; but it must be what I want you to tell me.

Has it not occurred to you that, conversely, other people do not have your difficulties because they do not react as you do to what happens?

Why do people always wonder whether books are any good, without wondering whether they are themselves in a state to profit from them?

When the lion had eaten its fill, and the jackals had taken their share, the ants came along and finished up the meat from the bones of the haughty stag.

Saying of the Prophet Death Die before your death.

One can give or withhold in a manner far more effective, sophisticated, useful, which is quite invisible to people who think that giving or withholding is done by external assessment. If you seek some mark of favour or 'promotion', know that you are not ready for it. Progress comes through capacity to learn, and is irresistible. Nobody can stand between you and knowledge if you are fit for it.

There is a succession of experiences which together constitute the educational and developmental ripening of the learner, according to the Sufis. People who think that each gain is the goal itself will freeze at any such stage, and cannot learn through successive and superseding lessons.