Quote

If, from time to time, you give up expectation, you will be able to perceive what it is you are getting.

Idries Shah

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Idries Shah
Age: 72 †
Born: 1924
Born: June 16
Died: 1996
Died: November 23
Author
Collector Of Fairy Tales
Teacher
Writer
Simla
Arkon Daraul
Able
Giving
Time
Expectation
Perceive
Expectations
Getting
Give

More quotes by Idries Shah

Image
When tomorrow comes, think tomorrow's thoughts.
Idries Shah
Image
The secret of Sufism is that it has no secret at all'.
Idries Shah
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Effort makes some great men famous. Even greater effort enables other great men to remain unknown.
Idries Shah
Image
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
Image
When a belief becomes more than an instrument, you are lost. You remain lost until you learn what 'belief' is really for.
Idries Shah
Image
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
Image
You are adrift while you still think that a means is an end.
Idries Shah
Image
History is not usually what has happened. History is what some people have thought to be significant.
Idries Shah
Image
The word 'choice' is a fraud while people choose only what they have been taught to choose.
Idries Shah
Image
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.
Idries Shah
Image
Advice is priceless: when it becomes interference it is preposterous.
Idries Shah
Image
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
Image
It is not only a matter of not caring who knows - it is also a matter of knowing who cares.
Idries Shah
Image
Exercise power by means of kindness, and you may be causing more damage than you could by cruelty. Neither approach is correct.
Idries Shah
Image
Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.
Idries Shah
Image
The chicken had his wish, and was magically transformed into a fox. Then he found that he could not digest grain.
Idries Shah
Image
When the Higher Man does something worthy of admiration, it is an evidence of his Mastership, not the object of it.
Idries Shah