Quotes by Idries Shah

Saying of the ProphetEnvyEnvy devours good deeds, as a fire devours fuel.

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

In the realm of Greater Understanding, the workshop is dismantled after the work is finished.

The tongue is the best masseur of furrowed brows.

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

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

Sufism, they say, is that which enables one to understand religion, irrespective of its current outward form.

None should say: ‘I can trust,’ or ‘I cannot trust’ until he is master of the option, of trusting or not trusting.

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

However fast you run, or however skilfully, you can’t run away from your own feet.

Most of the supposedly Sufi organizations, exercises and “orders” are in fact only of archaeological interest.

The Sufi is one who does what others do – when it is necessary. He is also one who does what others cannot do – when it is indicated.

if... says: Do not be greedy, be generous, you may inwardly interpret this in such a manner that you will develop a greed for generosity

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

Remember the proverb: A sign is enough for the alert, but a thousand counsels are not enough for the negligent.

Laziness is always your fault. It is the sign that a man has persevered in uselessness for too long.

One of the great Sufis said: A saint is a saint unless he knows that he is one.

Premature independence is the daughter of conceit.

There can be no spirituality, according to the Sufi masters, without psychology, psychological insight and sociological balance.

When humility is exercised, people begin to realise that they do not, as it were, exist at all.