01UndatedThe Way of the Sufis cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning.Idries Shah / quote ↗
02UndatedBetter to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.Idries Shah / quote ↗
03UndatedIf you seek small things to do, and do them well, great things will seek you, and demand to be performed.Idries Shah / quote ↗
04UndatedStudy the assumptions behind your actions. Then study the assumptions behind your assumptions.Idries Shah / quote ↗
06UndatedThe institution of teachership is there for this reason, that the learner must learn how to learn.Idries Shah / quote ↗
08UndatedThey asked Abboud of Omdurman: 'Which is better, to be young or to be old?' He said: 'To be old is to have less time before you and more mistakes behind. I leave you to decide whether this is better than the reverse.Idries Shah / quote ↗
09UndatedIt is no accident that Sufis find that they can connect most constructively with people who are well integrated into the world, as well as having higher aims, and that those who adopt a sensible attitude towards society and life as generally known can usually absorb Sufi teachings very well indeedIdries Shah / quote ↗
10UndatedThe main problem is that most commentators are accustomed to thinking of spiritual schools as 'systems', which are more or less alike, and which depend upon dogma and ritual: and especially upon repetition and the application of continual and standardised pressures upon their followers.The Sufi way, except in degenerate forms which are not to be classified as Sufic, is entirely different from this.Idries Shah / quote ↗
11UndatedThere 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 / quote ↗
12UndatedShow a man too many camels' bones, or show them to him too often, and he will not be able to recognize a camel when he comes across a live one. (Mirza Ahsan of Tabriz)Idries Shah / quote ↗
13UndatedKnowledge is not gained, it is there all the time. It is the "veils" which have to be dissolved in the mind.Idries Shah / quote ↗
14UndatedSaying of the ProphetDesireDesire not the world, and God will love you. Desire not what others have, and they will love you.Idries Shah / quote ↗
15UndatedTwo people can illustrate crudity to you.The first is the crude man, whom you see perceiving the diamond as a stone.The other is the refined man, who makes clear to you the crudity of the first one.Idries Shah / quote ↗
16UndatedThe Sufi must be able to alternate his thought between the relative and the Absolute, the approximate and the Real.Idries Shah / quote ↗
17UndatedThe Sufis,' runs the saying, 'understand with their hearts what the most learned scholars cannot understand with their mindsIdries Shah / quote ↗
18UndatedWhen a belief becomes more than an instrument, you are lost. You remain lost until you learn what 'belief' is really for.Idries Shah / quote ↗
19UndatedAli, Son of the Father of the SeekerAli said: 'None may arrive at the Truth until he is able to think that the Path itself may be wrong. This is because those who can only believe that it must be right are not believers, but people who are incapable of thinking otherwise than they already think. Such people are not men at all. Like animals they must follow certain beliefs, and during this time they cannot learn. Because they cannot be called “humanity”, they cannot arrive at the Truth.Idries Shah / quote ↗
20UndatedAlmost every day I am reminded of Saadi's reflection that there is no senseless tyranny like that of subordinates.Idries Shah / quote ↗
23UndatedDefinitions from Mulla Do-PiazaBribe Substitute for law, which is a substitute for justice.Idries Shah / quote ↗
24UndatedDefinitions from Mulla Do-PiazaSupporter: Someone who will say anything.Idries Shah / quote ↗
