Top 450 Idries Shah Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “As Ibn Arabi says: ‘Absolute existence is the source of all existence’.”

— Idries Shah

52. “One of the tragedies of modern times is that people have come to believe that something said by someone in the past, perhaps for illustrative or provocation purposes, actually represents that person’s beliefs at the time.”

— Idries Shah

53. “Whatever goes into a salt-mine becomes salt.”

— Idries Shah

54. “Too much kindness towards the fox may mean doom for the rabbit.”

— Idries Shah

55. “The impatient man is his own enemy; he slams the door on his own progress.”

— Idries Shah

56. “An egocentric pessimist is a person who thinks he hasn’t changed, but that other people are behaving worse than before.”

— Idries Shah

57. “El proceso de aprender es el proceso de descubrir lo que realmente existe.”

— Idries Shah

58. “Premature independence is the daughter of conceit.”

— Idries Shah

59. “La paciencia es amarga, pero produce un dulce fruto.”

— Idries Shah

60. “People 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 Shah

61. “Do not think that your magic ring will work if you are not yourself Solomon.”

— Idries Shah

62. “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

63. “People used to play with toys. Now the toys play with them.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

65. “Muchos eruditos son destruidos por la ignorancia y por el conocimiento que no saben utilizar.”

— Idries Shah

66. “The union of the mind and intuition which brings about illumination, and the development which the Sufis seek, is based upon love.”

— Idries Shah

67. “The laziness of adolescence is a rehearsal for the incapacity of old age.”

— Idries Shah

68. “When people have a hard task to do – one which stretches them – they become less concerned with trivial matters.”

— Idries Shah

69. “Anyone 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 Shah

70. “Our objective is to achieve, by the understanding of the Origin, the Knowledge which comes through experience.”

— Idries Shah

71. “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

72. “Trying to force something is the best way to stop it happening.”

— Idries Shah

73. “The learned person who only talks will never Penetrate to the inner heart of humans.”

— Idries Shah

74. “A man who believes the word of a donkey in preference to my word does not deserve to be lent anything.”

— Idries Shah

75. “La herencia y la cultura oscurecen las capacidades superiores de la gente.”

— Idries Shah

76. “To be obsessed by the idea of freedom, for instance, is itself a form of slavery. Such people are in the chains of the hope of freedom, and are therefore able to do little else than struggle with them.”

— Idries Shah

77. “When a belief becomes more than an instrument, you are lost. You remain lost until you learn what ‘belief’ is really for.”

— Idries Shah

78. “Many people who are in reality dead are walking in the streets; many who are in their graves are in reality alive.”

— Idries Shah

79. “It 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 Shah

80. “Correct teaching brings out human excellence.”

— Idries Shah

81. “None should say: ‘I can trust’ or ‘I cannot trust’ until he is a master of the option, of trusting or not trusting.”

— Idries Shah

82. “Exercise power by means of kindness, and you may be causing more damage than you could by cruelty. Neither approach is correct.”

— Idries Shah

83. “If your desire for ‘good’ is based on greed, it is not good, but greed.”

— Idries Shah

84. “It is not only a matter of not caring who knows – it is also a matter of knowing who cares.”

— Idries Shah

85. “A 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 Shah

86. “Sufism,” according to the Sufi, “is an adventure in living, necessary adventure.”

— Idries Shah

87. “Many things which are called ‘secrets’ are only things withheld from people until they can understand or effectively experience them.”

— Idries Shah

88. “Anybody or anything may stand between you and knowledge if you are unfit for it.”

— Idries Shah

89. “The mine is always bigger than the gem.”

— Idries Shah

90. “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.”

— Idries Shah

91. “There is one kind of man worse than a boastful man: a complaining one.”

— Idries Shah

92. “It is the message, not the man, which is important to the Sufis.”

— Idries Shah

93. “Treat this world as I do, like a wayfarer; like a horseman who stops in the shade of a tree for a time, and then moves on.”

— Idries Shah

94. “The chicken had his wish, and was magically transformed into a fox. Then he found that he could not digest grain.”

— Idries Shah

95. “But one may say something and yet not be able to do it. Try, for instance, lifting yourself up by the bootstraps.”

— Idries Shah

96. “Learn how much knowledge is needed before we can see how ignorant we are.”

— Idries Shah

97. “Effort makes some great men famous. Even greater effort enables other great men to remain unknown.”

— Idries Shah

98. “When the Higher Man does something worthy of admiration, it is an evidence of his Mastership, not the object of it.”

— Idries Shah

99. “Knowledge is not gained, it is there all the time. It is the “veils” which have to be dissolved in the mind.”

— Idries Shah

100. “The Path is not to be found anywhere except in human service.”

— Idries Shah