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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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Idries Shah
Age: 72 †
Born: 1924
Born: June 16
Died: 1996
Died: November 23
Author
Collector Of Fairy Tales
Teacher
Writer
Simla
Arkon Daraul
Form
Instance
Littles
Slavery
Able
Therefore
Ideas
Struggle
Little
Freedom
People
Hope
Idea
Chains
Else
Obsessed
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The Path is not to be found anywhere except in human service
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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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History is not usually what has happened. History is what some people have thought to be significant.
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It is not important to have said a thing first, or best - or even most interestingly. What is important is to say it on the right occasion.
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Do not try to be humble: learn humility.
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The sufis believe that they can experience something more complete.
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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.
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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.
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Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.
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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.
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The learned person who only talks will never Penetrate to the inner heart of humans.
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A generous person may not have wisdom: but, unlike others, he has the means to gain it.
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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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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.
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Advice is priceless: when it becomes interference it is preposterous.
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Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun?
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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
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If you can turn a murderer into a mere thief, you are making progress.
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The impatient man is his own enemy he slams the door on his own progress.
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To 'see both sides' of a problem is the surest way to prevent its complete solution. Because there are always more than two sides.
Idries Shah