Top 450 Idries Shah Quotes (2026 Update)
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301. “In the realm of Greater Understanding, the workshop is dismantled after the work is finished.”

— Idries Shah

302. “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

303. “The teacher works in accordance with the prospects of his students and the possibility of maintaining the community of Sufis.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

306. “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

307. “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

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

310. “If you really want to learn, do not be surprised if someone tries to teach you. And do not lightly reject the method.”

— Idries Shah

311. “Of whom can we think well when it is believed that if nothing bad is done to you, this has been a kindness?”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

313. “Enviar un beso por mensajero.”

— Idries Shah

314. “One day we will all wear a garment which has no pockets...”

— Idries Shah

315. “I am an idol worshipper; for I understand what idol worship means, and the idolater does not.”

— Idries Shah

316. “There is a saying that, according to what a person’s mentality is, even an angel may seem to him to have a devil’s face.”

— Idries Shah

317. “What you are seeking in your retreat, I see clearly in every road and alleyway.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

321. “Hay tantos caminos hacia la verdad como almas humanas.”

— Idries Shah

322. “Exaggeration is a standard peculiarity of man. To deprecate is often a form of exaggeration which people do not notice, because it appears to be its opposite.”

— Idries Shah

323. “Most people, whatever their opinions and protestations, do not want to learn.”

— Idries Shah

324. “There is something in man which can detect real love. We rub it out, or muffle it, by substitute-love.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

326. “No surgeon can treat the wounds of the tongue.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

328. “Si tienes dos camisas, vende una y con el dinero compra una flor”.”

— Idries Shah

329. “Make mankind your dwelling place.”

— Idries Shah

330. “But the world itself, as well as special attitudes, properly understood, constitute the Sufi school.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

332. “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

333. “You cannot learn more until you can learn more.”

— Idries Shah

334. “Superior experience and knowledge will be made available to a man or woman in exact accordance with his worth, capacity and earning of it.”

— Idries Shah

335. “A book, for the Sufis, is an instrument as much as it is something to give information.”

— Idries Shah

336. “If you are covetous, you are a prisoner: If you are greedy, you will never be filled.”

— Idries Shah

337. “What you have to learn is how to find the unworldly in everything.”

— Idries Shah

338. “What is known to be tyranny to the superior man may appear to be justice to the ordinary one.”

— Idries Shah

339. “Why did I do such-and-such a thing?′ is all very well. But what about ‘How otherwise could I have done it?”

— Idries Shah

340. “When the mind is full of established biases, it will not be able to graft Sufism on top of them.”

— Idries Shah

341. “When you feel least interested in following the Way which you have entered, this may be the time when it is most appropriate for you.”

— Idries Shah

342. “Wisdom is when you understand what, previously, at best you only knew.”

— Idries Shah

343. “If you will not reprove yourself,’ Saadi says, ’you will not welcome reproof from another.”

— Idries Shah

344. “Sufism is the doing in this lifetime what any fool will be doing in then thousand years’ time.”

— Idries Shah

345. “El sufismo se transmite por medio del elemento humano, es decir del maestro.”

— Idries Shah

346. “The Sufi must be able to alternate his thought between the relative and the Absolute, the approximate and the Real.”

— Idries Shah

347. “The teacher is one who abandons ceremonial and religious display and social appearances, and concentrates on real development.”

— Idries Shah

348. “You call me an unbeliever. I shall therefore call you a True Believer since a lie is best met with one of similar magnitude.”

— Idries Shah

349. “Ignorance is the Mother of Opposition.”

— Idries Shah

350. “The liar has a bad memory.”

— Idries Shah