Top 450 Idries Shah Quotes (2025 Update)
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251. “Mejor discutir con un amigo que apoyar enemigos.”

— Idries Shah

252. “Real generosity is anonymous to the extent that a man should be prepared even to be considered ungenerous rather than explain it to others.”

— Idries Shah

253. “Me conviertes en un pecador si me impides darte hospitalidad.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

255. “The tongue is the best masseur of furrowed brows.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

257. “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

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

260. “Si no puedes sentarte en un trono como un rey, sujeta, como un tendero, la cuerda de la tienda Real.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

263. “People in this civilization are starving in the middle of plenty. This is a civilization that is going down, not because it hasn’t got the knowledge that would save it, but because nobody will use the knowledge.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

265. “Sufis are those who have expunged from their minds the human tendencies of envy and enmity.”

— Idries Shah

266. “You must improve yourself on a higher level if you are to be able to help people, and not just weep over them.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

268. “La prisa procede del diablo.”

— Idries Shah

269. “They say: ‘Seek wisdom while you have the strength, or you may lose the strength without gaining wisdom.”

— Idries Shah

270. “One should not pray if that prayer is vanity.”

— Idries Shah

271. “The best player of a game is the watcher – ask him.”

— Idries Shah

272. “Los grandes hombres son grandes hasta que lo saben. Los santos son santos hasta que lo saben.”

— Idries Shah

273. “Have the nature of a dervish: then wear a stylish cap.”

— Idries Shah

274. “Greed harms you: generosity helps you. This is why is has been said: ‘Greed is the mother of incapacity’.”

— Idries Shah

275. “Brave is the thief who carries a lamp in his hand.”

— Idries Shah

276. “Sufism is, in fact, not a mystical system, not a religion, but a body of knowledge.”

— Idries Shah

277. “I am the Real, for I have not ceased to be real – through the Real.”

— Idries Shah

278. “La independencia prematura es la hija de la vanidad.”

— Idries Shah

279. “If you forsake a path, it is because you were hoping for conviction from it. You seek conviction, not self-knowledge.”

— Idries Shah

280. “Patience is a garment which has never worn out.”

— Idries Shah

281. “There is no wisdom where there is no common sense: it cannot under those conditions find any expression.”

— Idries Shah

282. “You will always have doubts, but only discover them at a useful time for your weakness to point them out.”

— Idries Shah

283. “People who cannot trust are themselves not trustworthy, and therefore cannot be entrusted with important things.”

— Idries Shah

284. “Los corazones de los nobles son las tumbas de las confidencias.”

— Idries Shah

285. “Those who say ‘I am ready to learn’, or ‘I am not ready to learn’ are as often mistaken as they are correct in their surmise.”

— Idries Shah

286. “Lo que va dentro de una mina de sal se convierte en sal.”

— Idries Shah

287. “A stolen kiss is not easily returned.”

— Idries Shah

288. “The door of illumination is open to those for whom other doors are closed.”

— Idries Shah

289. “Study institutions may become visible when the head is more emptied of imaginings.”

— Idries Shah

290. “In a village where everyone has only one leg, the biped will hop about more lamely than anyone else, if he knows what is good for him.”

— Idries Shah

291. “At His door, what is the difference between Moslem and Christian, virtuous and guilty? At his door all are seekers and He the sought.”

— Idries Shah

292. “Rumi speaks of people who rely upon the written word as sometimes being no more than donkeys laden with books.”

— Idries Shah

293. “A Sufi has a right to be served, but he has no right to demand. Maruf Karkhi of Khorasan.”

— Idries Shah

294. “Fettered feet in the presence of friends is better than living in a garden with strangers.”

— Idries Shah

295. “The sort of man who, throwing a stone upon the ground, would miss.”

— Idries Shah

296. “You make me a sinner if you stop me giving you hospitality.”

— Idries Shah

297. “Sufismo es aquello que consigue llevar el Conocimiento Superior al hombre.”

— Idries Shah

298. “MAGHRIBI: Learning is in activity. Learning through words alone is minor activity.”

— Idries Shah

299. “Hit your hand on a stone and expect it to hurt.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah