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Effort makes some great men famous. Even greater effort enables other great men to remain unknown.

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
Famous
Remain
Effort
Greater
Makes
Great
Even
Enables
Men
Unknown

More quotes by Idries Shah

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The impatient man is his own enemy he slams the door on his own progress.
Idries Shah
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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.
Idries Shah
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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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The secret of Sufism is that it has no secret at all'.
Idries Shah
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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
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The word 'choice' is a fraud while people choose only what they have been taught to choose.
Idries Shah
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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.
Idries Shah
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From time to time ponder whether you are unconsciously saying: 'Truth is what I happen to be thinking at this moment.
Idries Shah
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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.
Idries Shah
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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.
Idries Shah
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Knowledge is not gained, it is there all the time. It is the veils which have to be dissolved in the mind.
Idries Shah
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People used to play with toys. Now the toys play with them.
Idries Shah
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The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk.
Idries Shah
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Anyone can see that an ass laden with books remains a donkey. A human being laden with the undigested results of a tussle with thoughts and books, however, still passes for wise.
Idries Shah
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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?
Idries Shah
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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.
Idries Shah
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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
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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One cannot learn from someone whom one distrusts.
Idries Shah
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When you realize the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge.
Idries Shah