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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. If you want to make a wise man happy - improve yourself!

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
Money
Honours
Power
Flattery
Give
Honour
Giving
Gifts
Make
Improve
Men
Ordinary
Think
Wise
Thinking
Happy

More quotes by 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.
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Opinion is usually something which people have when they lack comprehensive information.
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The chicken had his wish, and was magically transformed into a fox. Then he found that he could not digest grain.
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Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.
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People used to play with toys. Now the toys play with them.
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Effort makes some great men famous. Even greater effort enables other great men to remain unknown.
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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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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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A man who believes the word of a donkey in preference to my word does not deserve to be lent anything.
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Learn to be as analytical about things of which you are credulous as you are of those which you criticise.
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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.
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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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Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun?
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.
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Advice is priceless: when it becomes interference it is preposterous.
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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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When you realize the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge.
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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The Path is not to be found anywhere except in human service
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