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Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.

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
Pessimist
Optimist
Extra
Extras
Information
Sometimes

More quotes by Idries Shah

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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
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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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If you can turn a murderer into a mere thief, you are making progress.
Idries Shah
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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.
Idries Shah
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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.
Idries Shah
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Trying to force something is the best way to stop it happening.
Idries Shah
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Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun?
Idries Shah
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Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.
Idries Shah
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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.
Idries Shah
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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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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
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It is not only a matter of not caring who knows - it is also a matter of knowing who cares.
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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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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The chicken had his wish, and was magically transformed into a fox. Then he found that he could not digest grain.
Idries Shah
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If your desire for 'good' is based on greed, it is not good, but greed.
Idries Shah
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History is not usually what has happened. History is what some people have thought to be significant.
Idries Shah
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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.
Idries Shah
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Do not try to be humble: learn humility.
Idries Shah
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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.
Idries Shah