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Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.

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
Alternatives
Actual
Sorry
Safe
Value
Values
Better
Remark
Remarks

More quotes by Idries Shah

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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!
Idries Shah
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The word 'choice' is a fraud while people choose only what they have been taught to choose.
Idries Shah
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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.
Idries Shah
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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.
Idries Shah
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Opinion is usually something which people have when they lack comprehensive information.
Idries Shah
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A man who believes the word of a donkey in preference to my word does not deserve to be lent anything.
Idries Shah
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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.
Idries Shah
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A generous person may not have wisdom: but, unlike others, he has the means to gain it.
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
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Learn to be as analytical about things of which you are credulous as you are of those which you criticise.
Idries Shah
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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
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Do not try to be humble: learn humility.
Idries Shah
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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.
Idries Shah
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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.
Idries Shah
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Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun?
Idries Shah
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Effort makes some great men famous. Even greater effort enables other great men to remain unknown.
Idries Shah
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People used to play with toys. Now the toys play with them.
Idries Shah
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The impatient man is his own enemy he slams the door on his own progress.
Idries Shah
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It is not only a matter of not caring who knows - it is also a matter of knowing who cares.
Idries Shah
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When tomorrow comes, think tomorrow's thoughts.
Idries Shah