Wisdom Quotes by Idries Shah

“Truth has no form.”

— Idries Shah

“Sayings of the Prophet Trust: Trust in God – but tie your camel first.”

— Idries Shah

“The Sufi teacher’s mission is to be in the service of those who can learn.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

“Virtually all organisations known to you work largely by means of your greed.”

— Idries Shah

“A man must be a Salomon before his magical ring will work. (Hafiz)”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

“Opportunity's precious, and time is a sword.”

— Idries Shah

“Show me a person who really knows what 'good' is, and I will show you that he almost never uses the word.”

— Idries Shah

“Remedy Your medicine is in you, and you do not observe it. Your ailment is from yourself, and you do not register…

— Idries Shah

“As swords were designed to kill They did well to make them tongue-shaped. (Anwar-i-Suhaili)”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

“If you are penniless you will have a thousand dreams. Get even a single piece of money, however, and you will have…

— Idries Shah

“Our objective is to achieve, by the understanding of the Origin, the Knowledge which comes through experience.”

— Idries Shah

“One of the basic Sufi needs is to enable people to see themselves as they really are.”

— Idries Shah

“The Sufis regard systems which treat everyone alike as mechanical and degenerate.”

— Idries Shah

“Few things are more absurd than wise saws originally designed to inculcate or maintain the social needs of a society long past…

— Idries Shah

“Stages First I thought that a Teacher must be right in all things. Then I imagined that my teacher was wrong in…

— Idries Shah

“You can learn more in half an hour's direct contact with a source of knowledge (no matter the apparent reason for the…

— Idries Shah

“Wisdom Sufian said: 'The wisdom which is invisible but which sustains is a hundred times better than the appearance of wisdom, for…

— Idries Shah

Dramatic. A well developed sense of the dramatic has values beyond what people usually imagine. One of these is to realise the…

— Idries Shah

“Sufism is experiential. Capacities, even those for learning beyond a certain point, are provoked by Sufis, by one's own efforts and what…

— Idries Shah

Anyone can see that an ass laden with books remains a donkey. A human being laden with the undigested results of a…

— Idries Shah

“Presence and Absence A certain person may have, as you say, a wonderful presence: I do not know. What I do know…

— Idries Shah

When prayer, rituals and ascetic life are just a means of self-indulgence, they are harmful rather than beneficial. This is quite obvious…

— Idries Shah

“The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk. As Prince Dara Shikoh says, in a Persian poem:…

— Idries Shah

“The king said, ‘What wisdom have you gained from this event?’ The scholar replied: ‘I now understand that if anyone were to…

— Idries Shah

“Instant Reading. A certain famous Fakir was claiming in the village that he could teach an illiterate person to read by a…

— Idries Shah

“Contrary to Expectation. A wise man, the wonder of his age, taught his disciples from a seemingly inexhaustible store of wisdom. He…

— Idries Shah

“And there are many people, both Moslem and Christian, who have a good grasp of each others0 conceptions of surrender to God…

— Idries Shah

“The would-be students wish to transcend books. But, ask yourselves: if someone says that books do not contain wisdom, and yet he…

— Idries Shah

Scholars of the East and West have heroically consecrated their whole working lives to making available, by means of their own disciplines,…

— Idries Shah

“The candle burned the moth: But soon it will vanish in its own fat.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

“Yes, the world is an illusion. But Truth is always being shown there.”

— Idries Shah

“Imagination blocks you like a bolt on a door. Burn that bar. (Rumi)”

— Idries Shah

“Sufism is transmitted by means of the human exemplar, the teacher.”

— Idries Shah

“A man must be a Solomon before his magical ring will work”

— Idries Shah

“Nobody can stand between you and knowledge if you are fit for it.”

— Idries Shah