Quote

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
Littles
Slavery
Able
Therefore
Ideas
Struggle
Little
Freedom
People
Hope
Idea
Chains
Else
Obsessed
Form
Instance

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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.
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Many things which are called 'secrets' are only things withheld from people until they can understand or effectively experience them.
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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.
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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.
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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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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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Effort makes some great men famous. Even greater effort enables other great men to remain unknown.
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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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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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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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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.
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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.
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When tomorrow comes, think tomorrow's thoughts.
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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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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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Worry is a cloud which rains destruction.
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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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Do not try to be humble: learn humility.
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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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Learn to be as analytical about things of which you are credulous as you are of those which you criticise.
Idries Shah