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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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Idries Shah
Age: 72 †
Born: 1924
Born: June 16
Died: 1996
Died: November 23
Author
Collector Of Fairy Tales
Teacher
Writer
Simla
Arkon Daraul
Something
Bootstraps
Lifting
Instance
May
Able
Trying

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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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Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun?
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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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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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Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.
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Trying to force something is the best way to stop it happening.
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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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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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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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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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Exercise power by means of kindness, and you may be causing more damage than you could by cruelty. Neither approach is correct.
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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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The chicken had his wish, and was magically transformed into a fox. Then he found that he could not digest grain.
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The impatient man is his own enemy he slams the door on his own progress.
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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.
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When you realize the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge.
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When tomorrow comes, think tomorrow's thoughts.
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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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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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The laziness of adolescence is a rehearsal for the incapacity of old age.
Idries Shah