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

More quotes by Idries Shah

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The word 'choice' is a fraud while people choose only what they have been taught to choose.
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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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None should say: 'I can trust' or 'I cannot trust' until he is a master of the option, of trusting or not trusting.
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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.
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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.
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It is not only a matter of not caring who knows - it is also a matter of knowing who cares.
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When you realize the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge.
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Opinion is usually something which people have when they lack comprehensive information.
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Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun?
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Worry is a cloud which rains destruction.
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Effort makes some great men famous. Even greater effort enables other great men to remain unknown.
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The impatient man is his own enemy he slams the door on his own progress.
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Right time, right place, right people equals success. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong people equals most of the real human history.
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The Path is not to be found anywhere except in human service
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History is not usually what has happened. History is what some people have thought to be significant.
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If you are uninterested in what I say, there's an end to it. If you like what I say, please try to understand which previous influences have made you like it. If you like some of the things I say, and dislike others, you could try to understand why. If you dislike all I say, why not try to find out what formed your attitude?
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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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You are adrift while you still think that a means is an end.
Idries Shah
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Trying to force something is the best way to stop it happening.
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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