“Forms are vehicles and instruments, and vehicles and instruments cannot be called good or bad without context.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“They say: 'Seek wisdom while you have the strength, or you may lose the strength without gaining wisdom.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“A book, for the Sufis, is an instrument as much as it is something to give information....The key is the teacher.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“...action is in fact knowledge in operation. Right action stems from right knowledge. Right knowledge is acquired through the teacher.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“A loan is the scissors of friendship. A man's own tongue may cut his throat. The cage has no value without the… — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“Sufism is therefore not 'Do as I say and not as I do', or even 'Do as I do', but 'Experience and… — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“It is no accident that Sufis find that they can connect most constructively with people who are well integrated into the world,… — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“You have come a long way, and you do not know it. You have a long way to go, and you do… — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“That which is given free is never knowledge. It may be information....but knowledge does not come in that manner.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“Remember the proverb: 'A sign is enough for the alert, but a thousand counsels are not enough for the negligent.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“When you observe that today's controversies often reveal not relevance but the clash of the untaught with the wrongly taught, and when… — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“Definition of a Sufi To learn, people must give up a great deal, and this includes ritual as something from which they… — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“HE is a Master who may teach without it being totally labelled teaching; HE is a student who can learn without being… — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“He who knows himself, knows his Lord' means, among other things, that self-deception prevents knowledge.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“All approaches to a study or an individual may start with a desire for attention. However they start, they must never end… — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“The person that you feel yourself to be, according to the Sufis, is a false person, which has no true reality.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“Superior experience and knowledge will be made available to a man or woman in exact accordance with his worth, capacity and earning… — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“Whoever gives knowledge to a fool loses it And who keeps it from the deserving does wrong.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“People think that they think things, and they also think that they know things. They could usefully give some attention to the… — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“Sufis hold that the superior experience and knowledge comes to a man or woman in exact accordance with his worth,capacity,and earning of… — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“Instant Reading. A certain famous Fakir was claiming in the village that he could teach an illiterate person to read by a… — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“The question of divine knowledge is so deep that it is really known only to those who have it.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“The door of illumination is open to those for whom other doors are closed.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“When you realise the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“To be a Sufi is to detach from fixed ideas and from preconceptions; and not to try to avoid what is your lot.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
Prescribing hard work for the soft, or easy work for the hardy, is generally nonsense. What is always needed in any aim is right… — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
A king who feared wasps once decreed that they were abolished. As it happened, they did him no harm. But he was eventually stung… — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“Do not tell your secrets to everyone in this headquarters, Earth. We have surveyed it well. There was nobody to whom to entrust secrets.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“Sufis are those who have expunged from their minds the human tendencies of envy and enmity.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“Yes, the world is an illusion. But Truth is always being shown there.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
The human being, whether he realises it or not, is trusting someone or something every moment of the day. — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
