IDRIES SHAH

If you give what can be taken, you are not really giving. Take what you are given, not what you want to be given. Give what cannot be taken.

One of the tragedies of modern times is that people have come to believe that something said by someone in the past, perhaps for illustrative or provocation purposes, actually represents that person's beliefs at the time.

Enlightenment must come little by little - otherwise it would overwhelm.

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

When you realize the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge.

Premature independence is the daughter of conceit.

Enemies are often former or potential friends who have been denied - or think that they have been denied - something.

Materialism, attachment to things of the world, includes pride. Many religious people suffer from pride: taking pleasure or even delight in being good, or religious.

One can give or withhold in a manner far more effective, sophisticated, useful, which is quite invisible to people who think that giving or withholding is done by external assessment. If you seek some mark of favour or 'promotion', know that you are not ready for it. Progress comes through capacity to learn, and is irresistible. Nobody can stand between you and knowledge if you are fit for it.

Prescribing hard work for the soft, or easy work for the hardy, is generally nonsense. What is always needed in any aim is right effort, right time, right people, right materials.

The chicken had his wish, and was magically transformed into a fox. Then he found that he could not digest grain.

Worry is a cloud which rains destruction.

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.

When the ignorant have become numerous or powerful enough, they have been referred to by a special name. This names is 'the Wise'.

Exercise power by means of kindness, and you may be causing more damage than you could by cruelty. Neither approach is correct.

It is not only a matter of not caring who knows - it is also a matter of knowing who cares.

The secret of Sufism is that it has no secret at all'.

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

One cannot learn from someone whom one distrusts.

From imperial, economic and ideological causes, many cultures are the inheritors, and hence the prisoners, of attitudes of scorn and disdain for other faiths – outlooks which are not ennobling to anyone.

The sufis believe that they can experience something more complete.

Banality is like boredom: bored people are boring people, people who think that things are banal are themselves banal. Interesting people can find something interesting in all things.

Opinion is usually something which people have when they lack comprehensive information.

None should say: 'I can trust' or 'I cannot trust' until he is a master of the option, of trusting or not trusting.

The impatient man is his own enemy; he slams the door on his own progress.