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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
Things
Withheld
People
Effectively
Secrets
Called
Secret
Understand
Experience
Many

More quotes by Idries Shah

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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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Dramatic. A well developed sense of the dramatic has values beyond what people usually imagine. One of these is to realise the limitations of a sense of the dramatic.
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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 word 'choice' is a fraud while people choose only what they have been taught to choose.
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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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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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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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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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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.
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The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk.
Idries Shah
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Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.
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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.
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
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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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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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Worry is a cloud which rains destruction.
Idries Shah
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You are adrift while you still think that a means is an end.
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 secret of Sufism is that it has no secret at all'.
Idries Shah
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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.
Idries Shah