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A certain person may have, as you say, a wonderful presence I do not know. What I do know is that he has a perfectly delightful absence.

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
Certain
May
Persons
Person
Delightful
Perfectly
Absence
Presence
Wonderful

More quotes by Idries Shah

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Advice is priceless: when it becomes interference it is preposterous.
Idries Shah
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Learn to be as analytical about things of which you are credulous as you are of those which you criticise.
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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Opinion is usually something which people have when they lack comprehensive information.
Idries Shah
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To be obsessed by the idea of freedom, for instance, is itself a form of slavery. Such people are in the chains of the hope of freedom, and are therefore able to do little else than struggle with them.
Idries Shah
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None should say: 'I can trust' or 'I cannot trust' until he is a master of the option, of trusting or not trusting.
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 the ignorant have become numerous or powerful enough, they have been referred to by a special name. This names is 'the Wise'.
Idries Shah
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When you realize the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge.
Idries Shah
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You are adrift while you still think that a means is an end.
Idries Shah
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From imperial, economic and ideological causes, many cultures are the inheritors, and hence the prisoners, of attitudes of scorn and disdain for other faiths – outlooks which are not ennobling to anyone.
Idries Shah
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It is not only a matter of not caring who knows - it is also a matter of knowing who cares.
Idries Shah
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One cannot learn from someone whom one distrusts.
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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Materialism, attachment to things of the world, includes pride. Many religious people suffer from pride: taking pleasure or even delight in being good, or religious.
Idries Shah
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The Path is not to be found anywhere except in human service
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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Exercise power by means of kindness, and you may be causing more damage than you could by cruelty. Neither approach is correct.
Idries Shah
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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 finds all-important - and vigilant while others are asleep. In other words, he keeps awake the spiritual attention dormant in others. That 'mankind sleeps in a nightmare of unfulfillment' is a commonplace of Sufi literature
Idries Shah