“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 humility is exercised, people begin to realise that they do not, as it were, exist at all.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“Has it not occurred to you that, conversely, other people do not have your difficulties because they do not react as you… — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“One of the great Sufis said: 'A saint is a saint unless he knows that he is one.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“When people believe that the form is more important than the Truth, they will not find truth, but will stay with form.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“Show a man too many camels' bones, or show them to him too often, and he will not be able to recognize… — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“Poor greedy one, wherever he runs He's after food, and death is after him. (Saadi)” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“The Sufis,' runs the saying, 'understand with their hearts what the most learned scholars cannot understand with their minds” — 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
Man (and woman) has an infinite capacity for self-development. Equally, he has an infinite capacity for self-destruction. A human being may be… — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“...most systems end up by making imagined humility into a form of vanity, so they end up with vanity just the same.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
The union of the mind and intuition which brings about illumination, and the development which the Sufis seek, is based upon love. — 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
