If you are uninterested in what I say, there's an end to it. If you like what I say, please try to understand which previous influences have made you like it. If you like some of the things I say, and dislike others, you could try to understand why. If you dislike all I say, why not try to find out what formed your attitude?
Idries ShahMan (and woman) has an infinite capacity for self-development. Equally, he has an infinite capacity for self-destruction. A human being may be clinically alive and yet, despite all appearances, spiritually dead.
Idries ShahYou need not wonder whether you should have an unreliable person as a friend. An unreliable person is nobody's friend.
Idries ShahWe view Sufism not as an ideology that molds people to the right way of belief or action, but as an art or science that can exert a beneficial influence on individuals and societies, in accordance with the needs of those individuals and societies ... Sufi study and development gives one capacities one did not have before.
Idries ShahThe more wakeful a man is to the things which surround him, the more asleep is he, and his waking is worse than his sleep.
Idries ShahTalking about straws and camels' backs is just one way of approaching things. If you have enough camels, no backs need be broken.
Idries ShahNone should say: 'I can trust' or 'I cannot trust' until he is a master of the option, of trusting or not trusting.
Idries ShahThere 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.
Idries Shah... when we are talking about 'Christians' and 'Moslems' we must first make sure that we are talking about people who have an idea, which should be more or less correct, as to what the other is supposed to believe and what he is expected to do as a consequence of that belief.
Idries ShahAnyone can see that an ass laden with books remains a donkey. A human being laden with the undigested results of a tussle with thoughts and books, however, still passes for wise.
Idries ShahA certain person may have, as you say, a wonderful presence; I do not know. What I do know is that he has a perfectly delightful absence.
Idries ShahIt is not important to have said a thing first, or best - or even most interestingly. What is important is to say it on the right occasion.
Idries ShahScholars 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 ShahKnowledge is not gained, it is there all the time. It is the "veils" which have to be dissolved in the mind.
Idries ShahEffort makes some great men famous. Even greater effort enables other great men to remain unknown.
Idries ShahBetter to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.
Idries ShahMAN: Kick him-he'll forgive you. Flatter him-he may or may not see through you. But ignore him and he'll hate you
Idries ShahHistory is not usually what has happened. History is what some people have thought to be significant.
Idries ShahIt is not enough that there is a collection of people with the common aim of working in unison towards an objective... Aspiration and desire only are not enough.
Idries ShahChristian scholars often say that Sufi theories are close to those of Christianity. Many Moslems maintain that they are essentially derived from Islam. The resemblance of many Sufi ideas to those of several religious and esoteric systems are sometimes taken as evidence of derivation. The Islamic interpretation is that religion is of one origin, differences being due to local or historical causes.
Idries ShahThe 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 ShahWhen people have a hard task to do - one which stretches them - they become less concerned with trivial matters.
Idries ShahThe chicken had his wish, and was magically transformed into a fox. Then he found that he could not digest grain.
Idries ShahA king who feared wasps once decreed that they were abolished. As it happened, they did him no harm. But he was eventually stung to death by scorpions.
Idries ShahPlease, not again what you studied, how long you spent at it, how many books you wrote, what people thought of you - but: what did you learn?
Idries ShahPeople today are in danger of drowning in information; but, because they have been taught that information is useful, they are more willing to drown than they need be. If they could handle information, they would not have to drown at all.
Idries ShahRight time, right place, right people equals success. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong people equals most of the real human history.
Idries ShahIf 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!
Idries ShahOne 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.
Idries ShahThe main problem is that most commentators are accustomed to thinking of spiritual schools as 'systems', which are more or less alike, and which depend upon dogma and ritual: and especially upon repetition and the application of continual and standardised pressures upon their followers.The Sufi way, except in degenerate forms which are not to be classified as Sufic, is entirely different from this.
Idries ShahPeople who speak or act in an ordinary fashion are most likely to be those who have been the recipients of higher experiences. But because they do not rage around, wild-eyed, people think that they are very ordinary folk and therefore not aware of anything unknown to the general run of man.
Idries ShahThe Way of the Sufis cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning.
Idries ShahAn egocentric pessimist is a person who thinks he hasn't changed, but that other people are behaving worse than before.
Idries ShahMeditation - Before you learn how to meditate, you must unlearn what you think meditation might be.
Idries Shah