Top 450 Idries Shah Quotes (2025 Update)

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

— Idries Shah

2. “It will pass, whatever it is.”

— Idries Shah

3. “Enlightenment must come little by little – otherwise it would overwhelm.”

— Idries Shah

4. “The secret of Sufism is that it has no secret at all’.”

— Idries Shah

5. “A real secret is something which only one person knows.”

— Idries Shah

6. “To ‘see both sides’ of a problem is the surest way to prevent its complete solution. Because there are always more than two sides.”

— Idries Shah

7. “Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun?”

— Idries Shah

8. “You are still adrift while you still think that a means is an end.”

— Idries Shah

9. “Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.”

— Idries Shah

10. “You need not wonder whether you should have an unreliable person as a friend. An unreliable person is nobody’s friend.”

— Idries Shah

11. “Materialism, attachment to things of the world, includes pride. Many religious people suffer from pride: taking pleasure or even delight in being good, or religious.”

— Idries Shah

12. “The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk.”

— Idries Shah

13. “You yourself are your own barrier – rise from within it.”

— Idries Shah

14. “The Way of the Sufis cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning.”

— Idries Shah

15. “You have not forgotten to remember; You have remembered to forget. But people can forget to forget. That is just as important as remembering to remember – and generally more practical.”

— Idries Shah

16. “Mediation – Before you learn how to meditate, you must unlearn what you think meditation might be.”

— Idries Shah

17. “Opinion is usually something which people have when they lack comprehensive information.”

— Idries Shah

18. “Do not try to be humble: learn humility.”

— Idries Shah

19. “Knowledge is something which you can use. Belief is something which uses you.”

— Idries Shah

20. “Progress comes through capacity to learn, and is irresistible.”

— Idries Shah

21. “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.”

— Idries Shah

22. “A motto of the human race: Let me do as I like, and give me approval as well.”

— Idries Shah

23. “Banality is like boredom: bored people are boring people, people who think that things are banal are themselves banal. Interesting people can find something interesting in all things.”

— Idries Shah

24. “Worry is a cloud which rains destruction.”

— Idries Shah

25. “The human being, whether he realises it or not, is trusting someone or something every moment of the day.”

— Idries Shah

26. “The 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 Shah

27. “The sufis believe that they can experience something more complete.”

— Idries Shah

28. “Enemies are often former or potential friends who have been denied – or think that they have been denied – something.”

— Idries Shah

29. “Whoever has taught me one letter has made me his slave.”

— Idries Shah

30. “La gente cambia y las necesidades cambian. Por ende, aquello que alguna vez fue Sufismo, ya no lo es.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

32. “You must empty out the dirty water before you fill the pitcher with clean.”

— Idries Shah

33. “If you give what can be taken, you are not really giving. Take what you are given, not what you want to be given. Give what cannot be taken.”

— Idries Shah

34. “When tomorrow comes, think tomorrow’s thoughts.”

— Idries Shah

35. “Se ha dicho que la “Humildad no es tanto una virtud como una necesidad a la hora de aprender”.”

— Idries Shah

36. “Patience is bitter, but bears a sweet fruit.”

— Idries Shah

37. “Ideologies exist only where there is no absolute knowledge. If you know something, you do not have to believe or disbelieve it...”

— Idries Shah

38. “Rumi himself once said that counterfeit gold is only to be found because there is such a thing as real gold to be copied.”

— Idries Shah

39. “Ibn El-Arabi wrote, ‘The Teacher is he who hears you, then unveils you to yourself.”

— Idries Shah

40. “The word ‘choice’ is a fraud while people choose only what they have been taught to choose.”

— Idries Shah

41. “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!”

— Idries Shah

42. “Learn to be as analytical about things of which you are credulous as you are of those which you criticise.”

— Idries Shah

43. “The colour of the water seems to be the colour of the glass into which it has been poured’.”

— Idries Shah

44. “Study the assumptions behind your actions. Then study the assumptions behind your assumptions.”

— Idries Shah

45. “If you can turn a murderer into a mere thief, you are making progress.”

— Idries Shah

46. “A 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 Shah

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

— Idries Shah

48. “History is not usually what has happened. History is what some people have thought to be significant.”

— Idries Shah

49. “The selection and following of a spiritual guide is the most important duty of a Sufi.”

— Idries Shah

50. “Pick up a bee from kindness, and learn the limitations of kindness.”

— Idries Shah