Top 450 Idries Shah Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “It has truly been said that ‘Humility is not so much a virtue as a necessity, in order to learn.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

204. “If you have two shirts, sell one and with the money buy a flower’.”

— Idries Shah

205. “The process of learning is the process of discovering what really exists.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

207. “The barren branches may appear inelegant: They are, to the cook, the means to make his fire.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

211. “The Sufi way of thinking is particularly appropriate in a world of mass communication, when every effort is directed towards making people believe that they want or need certain things; that they should believe certain things; that they should as a consequence do certain things that their manipulators want them to do.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

215. “The oven is hot: make bread.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

219. “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

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

222. “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

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

226. “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

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

229. “La felicidad de los superficiales: cuando un hombre que ha perdido su asno lo encuentra otra vez.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

232. “Los milagros, para el Sufi, no son evidentes; son instrumentales.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

234. “Ten la naturaleza de un derviche; entonces usa con un gorro elegante.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

238. “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

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

— Idries Shah

240. “When you are still fragmentated, lacking certainty – what difference does it make what your decisions are?”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

242. “The significance of the dwelling is in the dweller.”

— Idries Shah

243. “Be a tiger – if you are ready for a tiger’s problems.”

— Idries Shah

244. “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?”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

247. “As with any other specialisation, teaching is a vocation, open only to those who are truly capable of discharging its functions.”

— Idries Shah

248. “The phenomenal is the channel to the Truth. Al mujazu qantarat al Haqiqa.”

— Idries Shah

249. “Inheritance and culture obscure people’s higher capacities.”

— Idries Shah

250. “Los Sufis sostienen que la experiencia y el conocimiento superior le llegan al hombre o mujer en exacta concordancia con su valor, capacidad, y esfuerzo puesto en ello.”

— Idries Shah