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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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Idries Shah
Age: 72 †
Born: 1924
Born: June 16
Died: 1996
Died: November 23
Author
Collector Of Fairy Tales
Teacher
Writer
Simla
Arkon Daraul
Things
Credulous
Criticise
Analytical
Learn

More quotes by Idries Shah

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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
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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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Effort makes some great men famous. Even greater effort enables other great men to remain unknown.
Idries Shah
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To 'see both sides' of a problem is the surest way to prevent its complete solution. Because there are always more than two sides.
Idries Shah
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The laziness of adolescence is a rehearsal for the incapacity of old age.
Idries Shah
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When you realize the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge.
Idries Shah
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The learned person who only talks will never Penetrate to the inner heart of humans.
Idries Shah
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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.
Idries Shah
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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.
Idries Shah
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When the Higher Man does something worthy of admiration, it is an evidence of his Mastership, not the object of it.
Idries Shah
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One cannot learn from someone whom one distrusts.
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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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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Opinion is usually something which people have when they lack comprehensive information.
Idries Shah
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The chicken had his wish, and was magically transformed into a fox. Then he found that he could not digest grain.
Idries Shah
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If your desire for 'good' is based on greed, it is not good, but greed.
Idries Shah
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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.
Idries Shah
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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
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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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Right time, right place, right people equals success. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong people equals most of the real human history.
Idries Shah