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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

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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
Really
Taken
Given
Cannot
Give
Take
Giving

More quotes by 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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People used to play with toys. Now the toys play with them.
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Effort makes some great men famous. Even greater effort enables other great men to remain unknown.
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It is not only a matter of not caring who knows - it is also a matter of knowing who cares.
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Trying to force something is the best way to stop it happening.
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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.
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Worry is a cloud which rains destruction.
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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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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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If your desire for 'good' is based on greed, it is not good, but greed.
Idries Shah
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You are adrift while you still think that a means is an end.
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The learned person who only talks will never Penetrate to the inner heart of humans.
Idries Shah
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He that is purified by love is pure and he that is absorbed in the Beloved and hath abandoned all else is a Sufi.Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah.
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The laziness of adolescence is a rehearsal for the incapacity of old age.
Idries Shah
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One cannot learn from someone whom one distrusts.
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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.
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The Path is not to be found anywhere except in human service
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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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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Exercise power by means of kindness, and you may be causing more damage than you could by cruelty. Neither approach is correct.
Idries Shah