Quotes by Idries Shah

Scholars of the East and West have heroically consecrated their whole working lives to making available, by means of their own disciplines, Sufi literary and philosophical material to the world at large. In many cases they have faithfully recorded the Sufis own reiteration that the Way of the Sufis cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning.

You are still adrift while you still think that a means is an end.

I have heard all that you have had to say to me on your problems.You ask me what to do about them.It is my view that your real problem is that you are a member of the human race.Face that one first.

If you want to strengthen an enemy and make him exult - hate him.

When the ignorant have become numerous or powerful enough, they have been referred to by a special name. This names is the Wise.

Learn to be as analytical about things of which you are credulous as you are of those which you criticise.

Who is the wrong person to criticise?You

Greed harms you: generosity helps you. This is why is has been said: Greed is the mother of incapacity.

To be obsessed by the idea of freedom, for instance, is itself a form of slavery. Such people are in the chains of the hope of freedom, and are therefore able to do little else than struggle with them.

Water shrinks wool, urgency shrinks time.Shrinkage may be an advantage or the reverse, according to expectation.

A great deal of thought is only a substitute for the thoughts that the individual would really find useful at the time.

Prescribing hard work for the soft, or easy work for the hardy, is generally nonsense. What is always needed in any aim is right effort, right time, right people, right materials.

The stupidest man I ever met had a favourite saying.It was:What do you think I am, stupid, or something?

What is sometimes thought to be clever is, significantly often, merely an advanced form of foolishness.

It is the message, not the man, which is important to the Sufis.

You must empty out the dirty water before you fill the pitcher with clean.

The sufis believe that they can experience something more complete.

The union of the mind and intuition which brings about illumination, and the development which the Sufis seek, is based upon love.

Good. Show me a man who thinks that he knows what good is, and I will probably be able to show you a horror of a person. Show me a person who really knows what good is, and I will show you that he almost never uses the word.

Instant Reading. A certain famous Fakir was claiming in the village that he could teach an illiterate person to read by a lightning technique. Nasrudin stepped out of the crowd: Very well, teach me – now. The Fakir touched the Mullas forehead, and said: Now go home immediately and read a book. Half an our later Nasrudin was back in the market-place, clutching a book. The Fakir had gone on his way. Can you read now, Mulla? the people asked him. Yes, I can read – but that is not the point. Where is that charlatan? How can he be a charlatan if he has caused you to read without learning? Because this book, which is authoritative, says: “All Fakirs are frauds”.