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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.

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
Worse
Ignorance
Means
Proverb
Without
Persian
Mean
Testing
Even
Tested
Trying
Test
Something
Tests

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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.
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Many things which are called 'secrets' are only things withheld from people until they can understand or effectively experience them.
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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.
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When you realize the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge.
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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.
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When tomorrow comes, think tomorrow's thoughts.
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From time to time ponder whether you are unconsciously saying: 'Truth is what I happen to be thinking at this moment.
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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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Learn to be as analytical about things of which you are credulous as you are of those which you criticise.
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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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It is not only a matter of not caring who knows - it is also a matter of knowing who cares.
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The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk.
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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.
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Worry is a cloud which rains destruction.
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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.
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Effort makes some great men famous. Even greater effort enables other great men to remain unknown.
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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.
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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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The secret of Sufism is that it has no secret at all'.
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If you can turn a murderer into a mere thief, you are making progress.
Idries Shah