Idries Shah Quotes

Saying of the Prophet
Food
Nobody has eaten better food than that won by his own labour.

In the realm of Greater Understanding, the workshop is dismantled after the work is finished.

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.

Anybody or anything may stand between you and knowledge if you are unfit for it.

The Sufi must be able to alternate his thought between the relative and the Absolute, the approximate and the Real.

You call me an unbeliever. I shall therefore call you a True Believer since a lie is best met with one of similar magnitude.

Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Poverty: The result of marriage.

Even if false gold makes a man happy:
At the mint it will be identified.

Opportunity's precious, and time is a sword.

THE BIRD AND THE WATER
A bird which has not heard of fresh water
Dips his beak in salt-water year after year.
(Anwar-i-Suhaili)

THE HEAVENS
To the mallet of the Highest Mind
The heavens are the smallest possible ball.
(Akhlaq-i-Mohsini)

Knowledge. How curious that a man who closes his hand upon air so often thinks that he has a ruby within his grasp.

From the beginning, from the age of Adam to the time of kingship: from the powerful, pardon: from the poor, sins.

Man (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.

The sight of God in woman is the most perfect of all." Ibn Arabi.

Saying of the Prophet
The Bequest
I have nothing to leave you except my family.

Saying of the Prophet
Love
Do you think you love your Creator? Love your fellow-creature first.

Sufism is, in fact, not a mystical system, not a religion, but a body of knowledge.

A loan is the scissors of friendship.
A man's own tongue may cut his throat.
The cage has no value without the bird.

Learn about hornets from those who have been stung by them.