Quote

Exercise power by means of kindness, and you may be causing more damage than you could by cruelty. Neither approach is correct.

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
Neither
Exercise
Approach
Means
Causing
Power
Correct
May
Damage
Mean
Cruelty
Kindness

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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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Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.
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The impatient man is his own enemy he slams the door on his own progress.
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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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It is not only a matter of not caring who knows - it is also a matter of knowing who cares.
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There is a succession of experiences which together constitute the educational and developmental ripening of the learner, according to the Sufis. People who think that each gain is the goal itself will freeze at any such stage, and cannot learn through successive and superseding lessons.
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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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Trying to force something is the best way to stop it happening.
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One cannot learn from someone whom one distrusts.
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From time to time ponder whether you are unconsciously saying: 'Truth is what I happen to be thinking at this moment.
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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.
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People used to play with toys. Now the toys play with them.
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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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Do not try to be humble: learn humility.
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The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk.
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When tomorrow comes, think tomorrow's thoughts.
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The Path is not to be found anywhere except in human service
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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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Advice is priceless: when it becomes interference it is preposterous.
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History is not usually what has happened. History is what some people have thought to be significant.
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