Top 450 Idries Shah Quotes (2026 Update)
Page 6 of 10

251. “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

252. “A Sufi is one who is not bound by anything nor does he bind anything.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

257. “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

258. “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

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

— Idries Shah

260. “If the father cannot, the son will finish the task.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

262. “Everything man needs is in the world.”

— Idries Shah

263. “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

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

271. “Charity has been made into a great virtue only because of the low level of human decency.”

— Idries Shah

272. “Take the wheat, not the measure in which it is contained.”

— Idries Shah

273. “They have fixed our nutrition and arranged our life-span. More than this, and ahead of this, efforts will not be productive.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

276. “The teaching must, of course, work with the best part of the individual, must be directed to his or her real capacity.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

283. “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

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

— Idries Shah

285. “La gente habla de “servicio, esfuerzo, amor, conocimiento”. Pero con el conocimiento sabes lo que es amor, y lo que no lo es.”

— Idries Shah

286. “And Rumi tells us, ‘Soul receives from soul that knowledge, therefore not by book nor from tongue’.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

288. “When you get a principle on which everyone is agreed, you get the beginning of complacency and deterioration.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

291. “Salute to the Thief. Junaid of Baghdad was passing the scene of a public hanging, where a thief was on the scaffold. Junaid bowed towards the criminal. Someone asked him: ‘What did you do that?’ Junaid said: ‘I was bowing before his single-mindedness. For his aim, that man has given his life.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

293. “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

294. “Sufism is the essence of all religions.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

297. “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

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

300. “Mejor discutir con un amigo que apoyar enemigos.”

— Idries Shah