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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
Thieves
Mere
Progress
Turn
Turns
Making
Thief
Murderer

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The sufis believe that they can experience something more complete.
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Advice is priceless: when it becomes interference it is preposterous.
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But one may say something and yet not be able to do it. Try, for instance, lifting yourself up by the bootstraps.
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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!
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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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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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Effort makes some great men famous. Even greater effort enables other great men to remain unknown.
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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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When the ignorant have become numerous or powerful enough, they have been referred to by a special name. This names is 'the Wise'.
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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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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.
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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.
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Do not try to be humble: learn humility.
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If your desire for 'good' is based on greed, it is not good, but greed.
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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.
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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.
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The Path is not to be found anywhere except in human service
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The laziness of adolescence is a rehearsal for the incapacity of old age.
Idries Shah
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When the Higher Man does something worthy of admiration, it is an evidence of his Mastership, not the object of it.
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Right time, right place, right people equals success. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong people equals most of the real human history.
Idries Shah