“Fettered feet in the presence of friends is better than living in a garden with strangers.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“Laziness is always your fault. It is the sign that a man has persevered in uselessness for too long.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“if... says: 'Do not be greedy, be generous', you may inwardly interpret this in such a manner that you will develop a… — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“One of the basic Sufi needs is to enable people to see themselves as they really are.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“Never follow any impulse to teach, however strong it might be. The command to teach is not felt as an impulsion.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“They asked Abboud of Omdurman: 'Which is better, to be young or to be old?' He said: 'To be old is to… — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“The worst of sages is a visitor of princes; the best of princes is a visitor of sages.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“If you will not reprove yourself,’ Saadi says, ‘you will not welcome reproof from another.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“Most people, whatever their opinions and protestations, do not want to learn.” — 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 a camel… — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
Dramatic. A well developed sense of the dramatic has values beyond what people usually imagine. One of these is to realise the… — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“Sufism," according to the Sufi, "is an adventure in living, necessary adventure.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“Greed harms you: generosity helps you. This is why it has been said: 'Greed is the mother of incapacity'.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“As the Eastern saying, by the sage Hilali, has it, 'one person who understands is worth a hundred who merely obey a… — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“Good. Show me a man who thinks that he knows what 'good' is, and I will probably be able to show you… — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“Forms are vehicles and instruments, and vehicles and instruments cannot be called good or bad without context.” — Idries Shah Copy Share Image
“Whoever might perfume a scorpion Will not thereby escape its sting. Bahaudin Naqshband” — 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
“There can be no spirituality, according to the Sufi masters, without psychology, psychological insight and sociological balance.” — 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
