Idries Shah

“If you seek a teacher, try to become a real student. If you want to be a student, try to find a…

— Idries Shah

“Sufis are not here to satisfy a demand. They exist to share what they have got. These two things are not always…

— Idries Shah

“It is the goldsmith who can assay the gold.”

— Idries Shah

“The answer to a fool is silence. (Proverb)”

— Idries Shah

“Many a “learned” man is destroyed by ignorance and by the learning which is of no use to him’ (Hadrat Ahmed ibn…

— Idries Shah

“The selection and following of a spiritual guide is the most important duty of a Sufi.”

— Idries Shah

“SAYING OF SHEIKH ZIAUDIN: Self-justification is worse than the original offence.”

— Idries Shah

A man who believes the word of a donkey in preference to my word does not deserve to be lent anything.

— Idries Shah

“The man who knows must discharge a function. The one who does not, cannot arrogate one to himself; he can only try…

— Idries Shah

“Dicho del Mulá Nasrudín. Si sobrevivo a esta vida sin morirme, me sorprenderé. Las sutilezas del incomparable”

— Idries Shah

“Day and Night The night is long: do not shorten it by sleep. The day is fair: do not darken it with…

— Idries Shah

“It has truly been said that 'Humility is not so much a virtue as a necessity, in order to learn.”

— 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

“All forms are limited. Some of the limitations are time, place, culture, language.”

— Idries Shah

None should say: 'I can trust' or 'I cannot trust' until he is a master of the option, of trusting or not…

— Idries Shah

“Water shrinks wool, urgency shrinks time. Shrinkage may be an advantage or the reverse, according to expectation.”

— 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

“Si eres "humilde", puede ayudarte en tu vida ordinaria. Si no lo eres, no irás a ningún lado respecto a las cosas…

— Idries Shah

“People who have fallacious objectives are like the barren soil. The flowers grow from soil which is composed of the right objectives.”

— Idries Shah

If your desire for 'good' is based on greed, it is not good, but greed.

— Idries Shah

“The problem is that the spurious, the unreal, the untrue is so much easier to find that it is in danger of…

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

“Recuerda que virtualmente todas las organizaciones que conoces funcionan gracias a tu codicia. Te atraen porque apelan a tu codicia.”

— Idries Shah

“Voz en la noche Anoche, una voz me susurró: “¡No existe tal cosa como una voz susurrando en la noche!”

— Idries Shah

The main problem is that most commentators are accustomed to thinking of spiritual schools as 'systems', which are more or less alike,…

— Idries Shah