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If you can turn a murderer into a mere thief, you are making progress.
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
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Turns
Making
Thief
Murderer
Thieves
Mere
Progress
More quotes by Idries Shah
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.
Idries Shah
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
The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk.
Idries Shah
If your desire for 'good' is based on greed, it is not good, but greed.
Idries Shah
Worry is a cloud which rains destruction.
Idries Shah
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
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
But one may say something and yet not be able to do it. Try, for instance, lifting yourself up by the bootstraps.
Idries Shah
The secret of Sufism is that it has no secret at all'.
Idries Shah
Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.
Idries Shah
Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun?
Idries Shah
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
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
Do not try to be humble: learn humility.
Idries Shah
People used to play with toys. Now the toys play with them.
Idries Shah
Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.
Idries Shah
A generous person may not have wisdom: but, unlike others, he has the means to gain it.
Idries Shah
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
The chicken had his wish, and was magically transformed into a fox. Then he found that he could not digest grain.
Idries Shah
When the ignorant have become numerous or powerful enough, they have been referred to by a special name. This names is 'the Wise'.
Idries Shah