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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
Men
Ordinary
Think
Wise
Thinking
Happy
Money
Honours
Power
Flattery
Give
Honour
Giving
Gifts
Make
Improve
More quotes by Idries Shah
The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk.
Idries Shah
If, from time to time, you give up expectation, you will be able to perceive what it is you are getting.
Idries Shah
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
The impatient man is his own enemy he slams the door on his own progress.
Idries Shah
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
The Path is not to be found anywhere except in human service
Idries Shah
Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun?
Idries Shah
A generous person may not have wisdom: but, unlike others, he has the means to gain it.
Idries Shah
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
Knowledge is not gained, it is there all the time. It is the veils which have to be dissolved in the mind.
Idries Shah
There is a Persian proverb: 'To test that which has been tested is ignorance.' To try to test something without the means of testing is even worse.
Idries Shah
The learned person who only talks will never Penetrate to the inner heart of humans.
Idries Shah
Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.
Idries Shah
When the Higher Man does something worthy of admiration, it is an evidence of his Mastership, not the object of it.
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
People today are in danger of drowning in information but, because they have been taught that information is useful, they are more willing to drown than they need be. If they could handle information, they would not have to drown at all.
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
But one may say something and yet not be able to do it. Try, for instance, lifting yourself up by the bootstraps.
Idries Shah
Do not try to be humble: learn humility.
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