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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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Idries Shah
Age: 72 †
Born: 1924
Born: June 16
Died: 1996
Died: November 23
Author
Collector Of Fairy Tales
Teacher
Writer
Simla
Arkon Daraul
Slam
Impatient
Door
Doors
Progress
Enemy
Men
Slams

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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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Do not try to be humble: learn humility.
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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
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Advice is priceless: when it becomes interference it is preposterous.
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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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When tomorrow comes, think tomorrow's thoughts.
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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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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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Knowledge is not gained, it is there all the time. It is the veils which have to be dissolved in the mind.
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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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Opinion is usually something which people have when they lack comprehensive information.
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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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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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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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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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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, from time to time, you give up expectation, you will be able to perceive what it is you are getting.
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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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