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Any man who has ever led an army, an expedition, or a group of Boy Scouts has sadism in his bones.

Tahir Shah

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Tahir Shah
Age: 58
Born: 1966
Born: November 16
Author
Comedian
Explorer
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
London
England
Group
Groups
Boys
Sadism
Ever
Expedition
Men
Scouts
Expeditions
Bones
Army

More quotes by Tahir Shah

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On a harsh expedition, there's no space for anyone who does not intend to finish.
Tahir Shah
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I believe that Marrakech ought to be earned as a destination. The journey is the preparation for the experience. Reaching it too fast derides it, makes it a little less easy to understand.
Tahir Shah
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I was becoming addicted to Bombay. There was squalor and poverty, but I had begun to realise my good fortune and would never again forget it.
Tahir Shah
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To be selfless, you would give charity anonymously, walj softly on the earth, and look out for others-even total strangers-before you look out for yourself. For the Arab mind, the self is an obstacle, an impediment, in humanity's quest foe real progress.
Tahir Shah
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The inertia of a jungle village is a dangerous thing. Before you know it your whole life has slipped by and you are still waiting there.
Tahir Shah
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Most journeys have a clear beginning, but on some the ending is less well-defined. The question is, at what point do you bite your lip and head for home?
Tahir Shah
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Contemplation is a luxury, requiring time and alternatives.
Tahir Shah
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If hot food is they key to maintaining an expedition's stamina, then low grade gut-rot alcohol is the key to sustaining its sense of pleasure.
Tahir Shah
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I felt sure we could gain the upper hand by putting ourselves in the mindset of the Incas.
Tahir Shah
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There can be few situations more fearful than breaking down in darkness on the highway leading to Casablanca. I have rarely felt quite so vulnerable or alone.
Tahir Shah
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Real travel is not about the highlights with which you dazzle your friends once you're home. It's about the loneliness, the solitude, the evenings spent by yourself, pining to be somewhere else. Those are the moments of true value. You feel half proud of them and half ashamed and you hold them to your heart.
Tahir Shah
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One senses that, in these conditions, no amount of wet-wiping could bring true hygiene.
Tahir Shah
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It is almost impossible to overemphasize the importance with which ancestry is held in the Middle East and North Africa.
Tahir Shah
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Spend sixteen weeks in the jungle and you being to question your own sanity, especially when you are the one goading everyone else ahead.
Tahir Shah
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My father used to say that stories are part of the most precious heritage of mankind.
Tahir Shah
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Buy a house in a foreign country and, it seems, that anything which can go wrong usually does.
Tahir Shah
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There’s nothing quite like a good quest for getting your blood pumping.
Tahir Shah
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For me, a journey to Damascus is an amazing hunt from beginning to end, a slice through layers of history in search of treasure.
Tahir Shah
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The Occident has never found it easy to grasp the strange netherworld of spirits that followers of Islam universally believe exist in a realm overlaid our own.
Tahir Shah
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Move to a new country and you quickly see that visiting a place as a tourist, and actually moving there for good, are two very different things.
Tahir Shah