Quote

One of the tragedies of modern times is that people have come to believe that something said by someone in the past, perhaps for illustrative or provocation purposes, actually represents that person's beliefs at the time.

Idries Shah

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Idries Shah
Age: 72 †
Born: 1924
Born: June 16
Died: 1996
Died: November 23
Author
Collector Of Fairy Tales
Teacher
Writer
Simla
Arkon Daraul
Person
Modern
Illustrative
Come
Belief
Provocation
Something
Purpose
Tragedies
Believe
Actually
Represents
Time
Times
Purposes
People
Someone
Beliefs
Past
Tragedy
Persons
Perhaps

More quotes by Idries Shah

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Knowledge is not gained, it is there all the time. It is the veils which have to be dissolved in the mind.
Idries Shah
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But one may say something and yet not be able to do it. Try, for instance, lifting yourself up by the bootstraps.
Idries Shah
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You need not wonder whether you should have an unreliable person as a friend. An unreliable person is nobody's friend.
Idries Shah
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History is not usually what has happened. History is what some people have thought to be significant.
Idries Shah
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The more you look at 'common knowledge', the more you realise that it is more likely to be common than it is to be knowledge. No real knowledge is common.
Idries Shah
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If, from time to time, you give up expectation, you will be able to perceive what it is you are getting.
Idries Shah
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Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun?
Idries Shah
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When the lion had eaten its fill, and the jackals had taken their share, the ants came along and finished up the meat from the bones of the haughty stag.
Idries Shah
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When a belief becomes more than an instrument, you are lost. You remain lost until you learn what 'belief' is really for.
Idries Shah
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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 limitations of a sense of the dramatic.
Idries Shah
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There is a succession of experiences which together constitute the educational and developmental ripening of the learner, according to the Sufis. People who think that each gain is the goal itself will freeze at any such stage, and cannot learn through successive and superseding lessons.
Idries Shah
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The impatient man is his own enemy he slams the door on his own progress.
Idries Shah
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If you can turn a murderer into a mere thief, you are making progress.
Idries Shah
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Many things which are called 'secrets' are only things withheld from people until they can understand or effectively experience them.
Idries Shah
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The learned person who only talks will never Penetrate to the inner heart of humans.
Idries Shah
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People used to play with toys. Now the toys play with them.
Idries Shah
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A generous person may not have wisdom: but, unlike others, he has the means to gain it.
Idries Shah
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Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.
Idries Shah
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He that is purified by love is pure and he that is absorbed in the Beloved and hath abandoned all else is a Sufi.Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah.
Idries Shah
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Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.
Idries Shah