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

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You are adrift while you still think that a means is an end.
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When tomorrow comes, think tomorrow's thoughts.
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A generous person may not have wisdom: but, unlike others, he has the means to gain it.
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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.
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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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One cannot learn from someone whom one distrusts.
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The word 'choice' is a fraud while people choose only what they have been taught to choose.
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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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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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The laziness of adolescence is a rehearsal for the incapacity of old age.
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The impatient man is his own enemy he slams the door on his own progress.
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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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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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Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun?
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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.
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The more you look at 'common knowledge', the more you realise that it is more likely to be common than it is to be knowledge. No real knowledge is common.
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When a belief becomes more than an instrument, you are lost. You remain lost until you learn what 'belief' is really for.
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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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If your desire for 'good' is based on greed, it is not good, but greed.
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Effort makes some great men famous. Even greater effort enables other great men to remain unknown.
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