Quote

The Path is not to be found anywhere except in human service

Idries Shah

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Idries Shah
Age: 72 †
Born: 1924
Born: June 16
Died: 1996
Died: November 23
Author
Collector Of Fairy Tales
Teacher
Writer
Simla
Arkon Daraul
Path
Found
Human
Humans
Anywhere
Service
Except

More quotes by Idries Shah

Image
Learn to be as analytical about things of which you are credulous as you are of those which you criticise.
Idries Shah
Image
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.
Idries Shah
Image
The impatient man is his own enemy he slams the door on his own progress.
Idries Shah
Image
From time to time ponder whether you are unconsciously saying: 'Truth is what I happen to be thinking at this moment.
Idries Shah
Image
The word 'choice' is a fraud while people choose only what they have been taught to choose.
Idries Shah
Image
The chicken had his wish, and was magically transformed into a fox. Then he found that he could not digest grain.
Idries Shah
Image
If you want to make an ordinary man happy, or think that he is happy, give him money, power, flattery, gifts, honours. If you want to make a wise man happy - improve yourself!
Idries Shah
Image
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
Image
There is a succession of experiences which together constitute the educational and developmental ripening of the learner, according to the Sufis. People who think that each gain is the goal itself will freeze at any such stage, and cannot learn through successive and superseding lessons.
Idries Shah
Image
The sufis believe that they can experience something more complete.
Idries Shah
Image
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
Image
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
Idries Shah
Image
A generous person may not have wisdom: but, unlike others, he has the means to gain it.
Idries Shah
Image
Trying to force something is the best way to stop it happening.
Idries Shah
Image
The secret of Sufism is that it has no secret at all'.
Idries Shah
Image
When you realize the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge.
Idries Shah
Image
Knowledge is not gained, it is there all the time. It is the veils which have to be dissolved in the mind.
Idries Shah
Image
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
Image
Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.
Idries Shah
Image
Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun?
Idries Shah