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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
Think
Wise
Thinking
Happy
Money
Honours
Power
Flattery
Give
Honour
Giving
Gifts
Make
Improve
Men
Ordinary
More quotes by Idries Shah
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
A man who believes the word of a donkey in preference to my word does not deserve to be lent anything.
Idries Shah
The laziness of adolescence is a rehearsal for the incapacity of old age.
Idries Shah
The learned person who only talks will never Penetrate to the inner heart of humans.
Idries Shah
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
Do not try to be humble: learn humility.
Idries Shah
If you give what can be taken, you are not really giving. Take what you are given, not what you want to be given. Give what cannot be taken.
Idries Shah
One cannot learn from someone whom one distrusts.
Idries Shah
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
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
From time to time ponder whether you are unconsciously saying: 'Truth is what I happen to be thinking at this moment.
Idries Shah
The secret of Sufism is that it has no secret at all'.
Idries Shah
Learn to be as analytical about things of which you are credulous as you are of those which you criticise.
Idries Shah
When you realize the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge.
Idries Shah
The impatient man is his own enemy he slams the door on his own progress.
Idries Shah
When a belief becomes more than an instrument, you are lost. You remain lost until you learn what 'belief' is really for.
Idries Shah
If you can turn a murderer into a mere thief, you are making progress.
Idries Shah
If your desire for 'good' is based on greed, it is not good, but greed.
Idries Shah
Right time, right place, right people equals success. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong people equals most of the real human history.
Idries Shah
Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.
Idries Shah