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If your desire for 'good' is based on greed, it is not good, but greed.

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
Greed
Based
Desire
Good

More quotes by 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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The laziness of adolescence is a rehearsal for the incapacity of old age.
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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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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The secret of Sufism is that it has no secret at all'.
Idries Shah
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One cannot learn from someone whom one distrusts.
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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.
Idries Shah
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Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.
Idries Shah
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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
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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.
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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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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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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Effort makes some great men famous. Even greater effort enables other great men to remain unknown.
Idries Shah
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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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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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When the ignorant have become numerous or powerful enough, they have been referred to by a special name. This names is 'the Wise'.
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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You are adrift while you still think that a means is an end.
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