01UndatedOur objective is to achieve, by the understanding of the Origin, the Knowledge which comes through experience.Idries Shah / quote ↗
02UndatedScrapsThe scraps from the meal of the Emir are larger than the gifts of halwa from the merchant. Timur FazilIdries Shah / quote ↗
03UndatedAs swords were designed to killThey did well to make them tongue-shaped.(Anwar-i-Suhaili)Idries Shah / quote ↗
04UndatedSuperior experience and knowledge will be made available to a man or woman in exact accordance with his worth, capacity and earning of itIdries Shah / quote ↗
05UndatedMan (and woman) has an infinite capacity for self-development. Equally, he has an infinite capacity for self-destruction. A human being may be clinically alive and yet, despite all appearances, spiritually dead.Idries Shah / quote ↗
06UndatedThe decline in the influence of religion has been due, in the main, not to religion itself, but to the very shallowness of many practitioners. People who are indoctrinated and mistake implanted obsession for faith, are themselves destroyers of the very thing which they imagine themselves called upon to try to protect.In fact, of course, they have no such call: and their capacity to protect something which is other than their imaginings makes for a comical situation.Idries Shah / quote ↗
07UndatedThree ThingsThree things cannot be retrieved:The arrow once sped from the bowThe word spoken in hasteThe missed opportunity.(Ali the Lion, Caliph of Islam, son-in-law of Mohammed the Prophet),Idries Shah / quote ↗
08UndatedOpinion is usually something which people have when they lack comprehensive information.Idries Shah / quote ↗
09UndatedKnowledge is something which you can use.Belief is something which uses you.Idries Shah / quote ↗
10UndatedSufism," according to the Sufi, "is an adventure in living, necessary adventure.Idries Shah / quote ↗
11UndatedReligion, for instance, cannot be accepted or rejected out of hand, until the student knows exactly what religion means.Idries Shah / quote ↗
12UndatedPeople in this civilization are starving in the middle of plenty. This is a civilization that is going down, not because it hasn't got the knowledge that would save it, but because nobody will use the knowledge.Idries Shah / quote ↗
15UndatedSufis (the name for the realised individual, not the learner or follower) are reunited with objective Reality and Unity.Idries Shah / quote ↗
16UndatedDefinitions from Mulla Do-PiazaFlattery:One of the most promising of businesses: always brisk.Idries Shah / quote ↗
17UndatedThe teaching must, of course, work with the best part of the individual, must be directed to his or her real capacity.Idries Shah / quote ↗
19UndatedWhy did I do such-and-such a thing?' is all very well. But what about 'How otherwise could I have done it?'.Idries Shah / quote ↗
20UndatedIs your division of Understanding into Greater and Lesser common to all Sufis? Nothing which is put into words is common to all Sufis.Idries Shah / quote ↗
21UndatedIf you assume that it is there, you will generally not be far off the truth.Idries Shah / quote ↗
22UndatedMan thinks many things. He thinks he is One. He is usually several. Until he becomes One, he cannot have a fair idea of what he is at all.Idries Shah / quote ↗
24UndatedSufis deny the absolute reality of time, space and physical form. These things are both relative and local. They only appear to be absolute.Idries Shah / quote ↗
