Quotes by Idries Shah

About Idries Shah:

Idries Shah was an author and teacher in the Sufi tradition who wrote over three dozen books on topics ranging from psychology and spirituality to travelogues and culture studies.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

You can learn more in half an hour's direct contact with a source of knowledge (no matter the apparent reason for the contact or the subject of the transaction) than you can in years of formal effort.

Idries Shah

Premature independence is the daughter of conceit.

Idries Shah

Virtually all organisations known to you work largely by means of your greed.

Idries Shah

Feeling important is a vice, not a virtue, however concealed as participation in something noble.

Idries Shah

Greed harms you: generosity helps you. This is why is has been said: 'Greed is the mother of incapacity'.

Idries Shah

The means through which people may perceive Truth have forms; Truth has no form.

Idries Shah

Forms have changed through the centuries in obedience to the external world to which all forms belong.

Idries Shah

People who have fallacious objectives are like the barren soil. The flowers grow from soil which is composed of the right objectives.

Idries Shah

A book, for the Sufis, is an instrument as much as it is something to give information....The key is the teacher.

Idries Shah

The real generosity is when a man does something generous when nobody knows about it.

Idries Shah

All approaches to a study or an individual may start with a desire for attention. However they start, they must never end up in this manner.

Idries Shah

You have come a long way, and you do not know it. You have a long way to do, and you do know what that means.

Idries Shah

He who knows himself, knows his Lord' means, among other things, that self-deception prevents knowledge.

Idries Shah

Study institutions may become visible when the head is more emptied of imaginings.

Idries Shah

Man (and woman) has an infinite capacity for self-development. Equally, he has an infinite capacity for self-destruction.

Idries Shah

Assume that you are part-hypocrite and part heedless, and you will not be far wrong.

Idries Shah

The man who knows must discharge a function. The one who does not, cannot arrogate one to himself; he can only try to do so.

Idries Shah

Study the assumptions behind your actions. Then study the assumptions behind your assumptions.

Idries Shah

The institution of teachership is there for this reason, that the learner must learn how to learn.

Idries Shah

You have come a long way, and you do not know it. You have a long way to go, and you do know what that means.

Idries Shah

It 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 ca...

Idries Shah

Author Bio

  • NameIdries Shah
  • DescriptionWriter and Sufi teacher
  • BornJune 16, 1924
  • DiedNovember 23, 1996
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionWriter