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

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

More quotes by Idries Shah

Image
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
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
The word 'choice' is a fraud while people choose only what they have been taught to choose.
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
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
From time to time ponder whether you are unconsciously saying: 'Truth is what I happen to be thinking at this moment.
Idries Shah
Image
Knowledge is not gained, it is there all the time. It is the veils which have to be dissolved in the mind.
Idries Shah
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Learn to be as analytical about things of which you are credulous as you are of those which you criticise.
Idries Shah
Image
The secret of Sufism is that it has no secret at all'.
Idries Shah
Image
If your desire for 'good' is based on greed, it is not good, but greed.
Idries Shah
Image
A generous person may not have wisdom: but, unlike others, he has the means to gain it.
Idries Shah
Image
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.
Idries Shah
Image
Opinion is usually something which people have when they lack comprehensive information.
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
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
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
The sufis believe that they can experience something more complete.
Idries Shah
Image
One cannot learn from someone whom one distrusts.
Idries Shah