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Portrait of Idries Shah

Idries Shah

(1924–1996) Writer United Kingdom

365 quotes in 767 categories

If you’re after a fresh perspective on the everyday puzzles of life, Idries Shah’s collection of 365 sayings is a solid place to start. His words weave humor, paradox, and keen observation, giving you bite‑size moments of clarity that linger long after you read them.

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Idries Shah was a writer from the United Kingdom, best known for The way of the Sufi.

Quick Facts About Idries Shah

Born: June 16, 1924
Died: November 23, 1996
Nationality: United Kingdom
Profession: Writer
Notable works: The way of the Sufi

About Idries Shah

Idries Shah, also known as Idris Shah, Indries Shah, né Sayed Idries el-Hashimi and by the pen name Arkon Daraul, was an Afghan author, thinker and teacher in the Sufi tradition. Shah wrote over three dozen books on topics ranging from psychology and spirituality to travelogues and culture studies.

Biography source: Wikipedia

Quotes by Idries Shah

“The bowl is warmer than the soup.”

Bowl

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“La verdad no tiene forma.”

Amor

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“Truth has no form.”

Form

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“No existe práctica en aislamiento.”

Amor

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“El Sufismo es experiencial.”

Amor

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“Sufism is experiential”

Death

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“Sufism is known by means of itself.”

Experience

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“Sufism is, in operation, pragmatic.”

Hindu

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You must empty out the dirty water before you fill the pitcher with clean.

Clean

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

Phenomenal

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It is the message, not the man, which is important to the Sufis.

Hindu

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“If you want to know what he’s like — reverse what his opponents say.”

Reverse

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“Si no te reprochas a ti mismo”, dice Saadi, “no aceptarás el reproche ajeno.”

Amor

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

Hafiz

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Generosity is also marked by doing what one says one will do.

Doing

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When tomorrow comes, think tomorrow's thoughts.

Think

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“Los Sufis consideran mecánicos y degenerados a los sistemas que tratan a todos de la misma forma.”

Amor

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“If you will not reprove yourself,’ Saadi says, ‘you will not welcome reproof from another.”

Ego

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“¿No se te ha ocurrido que, al contrario, otras personas no tienen tus dificultades porque no reaccionan a lo que les sucede…

Amor

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“Whoever might perfume a scorpion Will not thereby escape its sting. Bahaudin Naqshband”

Bahaudin

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“If you seek small things to do, and do them well, great things will seek you, and demand to be performed.”

Awareness

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Meditation - Before you learn how to meditate, you must unlearn what you think meditation might be.

Education

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“Sufism is therefore not 'Do as I say and not as I do', or even 'Do as I do', but 'Experience and…

Experience

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“Conviction, far from being based upon reason, is the enemy of reason; because rationality does not change, while convictions do, all the…

Convictions

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You have not forgotten to remember; You have remembered to forget. But people can forget to forget. That is just as important…

Forget

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If the path has been laid down, why the successive appearance of different teachers? Why would anyone reinvent the wheel, if everything…

Appearance

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“Salute to the Thief. Junaid of Baghdad was passing the scene of a public hanging, where a thief was on the scaffold.…

Sufis

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“Muéstrale a un hombre demasiados huesos de camello, o muéstraselos demasiado a menudo, y no será capaz de reconocer a un camello…

Amor

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“All life is struggle, says the Sufi, but the struggle must be a coherent one. The average man is struggling against too…

Adversity

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If you want to make an ordinary man happy, or think that he is happy, give him money, power, flattery, gifts, honours.…

Flattery

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

Dramatic

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“Two people can illustrate crudity to you. The first is the crude man, whom you see perceiving the diamond as a stone.…

Crudity

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

Evolution

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“Knowledge of yourself may involve, if we are learning at the present time, a knowledge of the way of thinking of your…

Knowledge

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Like the bat, the Sufi is asleep to 'things of the day' - the familiar struggle for existence which the ordinary man…

Attention

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“The Seeking of the Master. Musa Najib was asked why he charged a fee from those who came to his sessions; and…

Seeking

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“Western society has in the past few decades taken a great step forward, which gives its members a perhaps unparalleled opportunity. This…

East and west

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“When you observe that today's controversies often reveal not relevance but the clash of the untaught with the wrongly taught, and when…

Cynicism

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Christian scholars often say that Sufi theories are close to those of Christianity. Many Moslems maintain that they are essentially derived from…

Causes

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If you are uninterested in what I say, there's an end to it. If you like what I say, please try to…

Attitude

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Idries Shah by topic

Sufis (230) Sufism (195) Wisdom (84) Sufi (71) Knowledge (54) Evolution (52) Learning (45) Psychology (39) Truth (36) Hindu (36) Amor (36) Sufismo (34) Religion (29) Life (27) People (24) Education (21) Mind (18) Thinking (16) Proverb (15) Idries-shah (15) Ego (15) Time (14) Men (13) Greed (13) Saadi (12)