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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
Understand
Experience
Many
Things
Withheld
People
Effectively
Secrets
Called
Secret

More quotes by Idries Shah

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The sufis believe that they can experience something more complete.
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The more you look at 'common knowledge', the more you realise that it is more likely to be common than it is to be knowledge. No real knowledge is common.
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Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.
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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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One cannot learn from someone whom one distrusts.
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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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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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One of the tragedies of modern times is that people have come to believe that something said by someone in the past, perhaps for illustrative or provocation purposes, actually represents that person's beliefs at the time.
Idries Shah
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History is not usually what has happened. History is what some people have thought to be significant.
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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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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None should say: 'I can trust' or 'I cannot trust' until he is a master of the option, of trusting or not trusting.
Idries Shah
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A generous person may not have wisdom: but, unlike others, he has the means to gain it.
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
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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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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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When tomorrow comes, think tomorrow's thoughts.
Idries Shah
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He that is purified by love is pure and he that is absorbed in the Beloved and hath abandoned all else is a Sufi.Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah.
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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The Path is not to be found anywhere except in human service
Idries Shah