Top 450 Idries Shah Quotes (2026 Update)
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201. “Saadi’s dictum, in the Bostan: ‘The Path is not in the rosary, the prayer-mat and the robe.”

— Idries Shah

202. “What is humanity? To feel pain at the sorrows of our neighbours, to feel humiliated at the humiliation of fellow-beings.”

— Idries Shah

203. “The secret protects itself. It is found only in the spirit and practice of the Work.”

— Idries Shah

204. “People talk about ‘service, effort, love, knowledge’. But with knowledge you know what love is, and what it is not.”

— Idries Shah

205. “Se ha visto mucho humo, y ha causado gran temor de fuego – incluso cuando no se ha producido fuego alguno.”

— Idries Shah

206. “Antes el Sufismo era una realidad sin nombre: ahora es un nombre sin una realidad”.”

— Idries Shah

207. “Dhun’nun el Egipcio: “Los Sufis son aquellos que han erradicado de sus mentes las tendencias humanas de envidia y antagonismo.”

— Idries Shah

208. “Sufism is that which succeeds in bringing to man the High Knowledge.”

— Idries Shah

209. “Un perro amarillo es hermano del chacal.”

— Idries Shah

210. “Practise your knowledge, for knowledge without practice is a body without life.”

— Idries Shah

211. “I will not serve God like a labourer, in expectation of my wages. Rabia.”

— Idries Shah

212. “No colour comes after black.”

— Idries Shah

213. “There are as many paths to Truth as there are souls of men.”

— Idries Shah

214. “Recognizing a ‘True Master’ is possible only when the postulant, man or woman, is what we call ‘sincere’.”

— Idries Shah

215. “Much smoke has been seen, and caused great fear of fire – even when no fire ensued.”

— Idries Shah

216. “Dios provee el alimento, los hombres proveen los cocineros.”

— Idries Shah

217. “The lightning said to the oak tree: ‘Stand aside, or take what is coming to you!”

— Idries Shah

218. “Hariri says, in his Maqamat: ‘Safety is on the river’s BANK.”

— Idries Shah

219. “La prisa procede del diablo.”

— Idries Shah

220. “Each flies with its own kind: pigeon with pigeon, hawk with hawk.”

— Idries Shah

221. “Saying of the Prophet. The Bequest: I have nothing to leave you except my family.”

— Idries Shah

222. “Never follow any impulse to teach, however strong it might be. The command to teach is not felt as an impulsion.”

— Idries Shah

223. “It has truly been said that ‘Humility is not so much a virtue as a necessity, in order to learn.”

— Idries Shah

224. “The totality of life cannot be understood, so runs Sufi teaching, if it is studied only through the methods which we use in everyday living.”

— Idries Shah

225. “The oven is hot: make bread.”

— Idries Shah

226. “A man’s capacity is the same as his breadth of vision.”

— Idries Shah

227. “The donkey which brought you to this door must be dismissed if you want to get through it’.”

— Idries Shah

228. “A Sufi is alive to the value of time, and is given, every moment, to what that moment demands.”

— Idries Shah

229. “The worst of sages is a visitor of princes; the best of princes is a visitor of sages.”

— Idries Shah

230. “Beggars and Workers IT IS RELATED of Ibn el-Arabi that people said to him: ‘Your circle is composed mainly of beggars, husbandmen and artisans. Can you not find people of intellect who will follow you, so that perhaps more authoritative notice might be taken of your teachings?’ He said: ‘The Day of Calamity will be infinitely.”

— Idries Shah

231. “Words, they say, are the food of minds. But, like other foods, they can do little by themselves.”

— Idries Shah

232. “Miracles, to the Sufi, are not evidential, they are instrumental.”

— Idries Shah

233. “The hearts of the noble are the graves of confidences.”

— Idries Shah

234. “Learn about hornets from those who have been stung by them.”

— Idries Shah

235. “El color del agua parece ser del color del vaso dentro del cual ha sido vertida’.”

— Idries Shah

236. “Do not dwell upon whether you will put yourself into the hands of a teacher. You are always in his hands.”

— Idries Shah

237. “La historia no es generalmente lo que ha sucedido. La historia es lo que algunas personas consideraron significativo.”

— Idries Shah

238. “Things which are seemingly opposed may in fact be working together.”

— Idries Shah

239. “Great men are great until they know it. Saints are holy until they know it.”

— Idries Shah

240. “A solved problem is as useful to a man’s mind as a broken sword on a battlefield.”

— Idries Shah

241. “Deteriorated science is a cult, so is imitative or deteriorated Sufism.”

— Idries Shah

242. “Sufis deny the absolute reality of time, space and physical form. These things are both relative and local. They only appear to be absolute.”

— Idries Shah

243. “These lecture provide material for the consideration of common factors, in theory and in development, from the viewpoint of the idea of surrender to the Divine Will, reviewing some aspects of the interplay between Christians and Moslems, and introducing material from and about Sufis.”

— Idries Shah

244. “The function of a nutrient is to become transmuted, not to leave unaltered traces.”

— Idries Shah

245. “Eat what you desire, but dress like other people.”

— Idries Shah

246. “Recuerda que la codicia incluye la codicia de no ser codicioso.”

— Idries Shah

247. “The problem is that the spurious, the unreal, the untrue is so much easier to find that it is in danger of becoming the norm.”

— Idries Shah

248. “Life: sometimes the man on the saddle, sometimes the saddle on the man.”

— Idries Shah

249. “God provides the food, men provide the cooks.”

— Idries Shah

250. “The 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 Shah