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Many things which are called 'secrets' are only things withheld from people until they can understand or effectively experience them.
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
Many
Things
Withheld
People
Effectively
Secrets
Called
Secret
Understand
Experience
More quotes by Idries Shah
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
A generous person may not have wisdom: but, unlike others, he has the means to gain it.
Idries Shah
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
Right time, right place, right people equals success. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong people equals most of the real human history.
Idries Shah
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
When the lion had eaten its fill, and the jackals had taken their share, the ants came along and finished up the meat from the bones of the haughty stag.
Idries Shah
If, from time to time, you give up expectation, you will be able to perceive what it is you are getting.
Idries Shah
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
From time to time ponder whether you are unconsciously saying: 'Truth is what I happen to be thinking at this moment.
Idries Shah
You are adrift while you still think that a means is an end.
Idries Shah
A man who believes the word of a donkey in preference to my word does not deserve to be lent anything.
Idries Shah
History is not usually what has happened. History is what some people have thought to be significant.
Idries Shah
But one may say something and yet not be able to do it. Try, for instance, lifting yourself up by the bootstraps.
Idries Shah
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
The learned person who only talks will never Penetrate to the inner heart of humans.
Idries Shah
Trying to force something is the best way to stop it happening.
Idries Shah
You need not wonder whether you should have an unreliable person as a friend. An unreliable person is nobody's friend.
Idries Shah
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.
Idries Shah
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
The secret of Sufism is that it has no secret at all'.
Idries Shah