Idries Shah
Idries Shah
Idries Shah, also known as Idris Shah, né Sayed Idries el-Hashimiand by the pen name Arkon Daraul, 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...
NationalityIndian
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth16 June 1924
CountryIndia
Idries Shah quotes about
mean thinking adrift
You are still adrift while you still think that a means is an end.
kindness mean exercise
Exercise power by means of kindness, and you may be causing more damage than you could by cruelty. Neither approach is correct.
book philosophical mean
Scholars of the East and West have heroically consecrated their whole working lives to making available, by means of their own disciplines, Sufi literary and philosophical material to the world at large. In many cases they have faithfully recorded the Sufis' own reiteration that the Way of the Sufis cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning.
prayer mean emotional
When prayer, rituals and ascetic life are just a means of self-indulgence, they are harmful rather than beneficial. This is quite obvious to people nowadays, when it is widely recognised that fixations are not the same as valuable and laudable observances. One should not pray if that prayer is vanity; rituals are wrong when they provide lower satisfactions, like emotional stimulus instead of enlightenment; he or she should not be an ascetic who is only enjoying it.
book mean way
The Way of the Sufis cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning.
ignorance mean trying
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.
mean generosity gains
A generous person may not have wisdom: but, unlike others, he has the means to gain it.
healing people teens
Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun?
remembers-you remember-you people
You have not forgotten to remember; You have remembered to forget. But people can forget to forget. That is just as important as remembering to remember - and generally more practical.
age laziness rehearsal
The laziness of adolescence is a rehearsal for the incapacity of old age.
people secret
Many things which are called 'secrets' are only things withheld from people until they can understand or effectively experience them.
wise men thinking
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!
people matter tasks
When people have a hard task to do - one which stretches them - they become less concerned with trivial matters.
sorry safe alternatives
Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.