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You are adrift while you still think that a means is an end.

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
Ends
Stills
Still
Mean
Think
Thinking
Adrift
Means

More quotes by Idries Shah

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Worry is a cloud which rains destruction.
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The secret of Sufism is that it has no secret at all'.
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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.
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If your desire for 'good' is based on greed, it is not good, but greed.
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Materialism, attachment to things of the world, includes pride. Many religious people suffer from pride: taking pleasure or even delight in being good, or religious.
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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!
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The Path is not to be found anywhere except in human service
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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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Opinion is usually something which people have when they lack comprehensive information.
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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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The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk.
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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.
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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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The word 'choice' is a fraud while people choose only what they have been taught to choose.
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Advice is priceless: when it becomes interference it is preposterous.
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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The sufis believe that they can experience something more complete.
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?
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Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.
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