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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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Idries Shah
Age: 72 †
Born: 1924
Born: June 16
Died: 1996
Died: November 23
Author
Collector Of Fairy Tales
Teacher
Writer
Simla
Arkon Daraul
Foxes
Chicken
Chickens
Grain
Transformed
Wish
Found
Magically
Digest
More quotes by Idries Shah
The secret of Sufism is that it has no secret at all'.
Idries Shah
Many things which are called 'secrets' are only things withheld from people until they can understand or effectively experience them.
Idries Shah
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
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
But one may say something and yet not be able to do it. Try, for instance, lifting yourself up by the bootstraps.
Idries Shah
If, from time to time, you give up expectation, you will be able to perceive what it is you are getting.
Idries Shah
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.
Idries Shah
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.
Idries Shah
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
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
A generous person may not have wisdom: but, unlike others, he has the means to gain it.
Idries Shah
Learn to be as analytical about things of which you are credulous as you are of those which you criticise.
Idries Shah
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.
Idries Shah
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
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
History is not usually what has happened. History is what some people have thought to be significant.
Idries Shah
Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.
Idries Shah
To 'see both sides' of a problem is the surest way to prevent its complete solution. Because there are always more than two sides.
Idries Shah
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
Advice is priceless: when it becomes interference it is preposterous.
Idries Shah