Idries Shah Quotes

Question everything!

Don't accuse anyone with the temerity to question your sad supernatural fantasies of having a 'closed mind' or being 'blind to possibilities'. A closed mind asks no questions, unthinkingly accepting that which it wants to believe. The blindness is all yours.

I think there are different ways of being rigorous, and I am asking people to be as rigorous in their pleasure as in their criticism.

I accept sceptics, you've got to have challenges.

Be Skeptical, but learn to listen.

Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy.

Oxford also taught me something else - it taught me scepticism.

In debate, one randomly was assigned to one side or the other. This had at least one virtue - it made one see that there was more than one side to these complex issues.

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted... but to weigh and consider.

By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.

Because a truly skeptical position would be a very uncertain one.

Conventional dogmas, even if endowed with the authority of an Aristotle - ancient or modern - must be tested vigorously. If they are found wanting, we need not bother with them. But if they are found to be substantially correct, we may not overlook them.

The virtues of science are skepticism and independence of thought.

True science teaches, above all, to doubt

To think critically is always to be hostile.

Over the years, I paid careful attention in client meetings and jotted down things that quite didn't make sense. And I had the courage to raise questions and to be skeptical when something didn't add up.

I respect and believe skeptics.

We need to take a step back and realize that not everything we encounter is true. You don't want to be gullibly accepting everything as true, but you don't want to be cynically rejecting everything as false. You want to take your time to evaluate the information.

As a general rule, if you want to get at the truth - hear both sides and believe neither.

The doubter is a true man of science: he doubts only himself and his interpretations, but he believes in science.

Indeed the reasoned criticism of a prevailing belief is a service to the proponents of that belief; if they are incapable of defending it, they are well advised to abandon it. This self-questioning and error-correcting aspect of the scientific method is its most striking property.

I have learned yet again (this has been going on all my life) what folly it is to take any thing for granted without examining it skeptically.

You should never assume anything coming from a critical standpoint. You should go into everything assuming you're going to get crushed.

Only the most uncritical minds are free from doubt.

The genuine rationalist does not think that he or anyone else is in possession of the truth; nor does he think that mere criticism as such helps us achieve new ideas. But he does think that, in the sphere of ideas, only critical discussion can help us sort the wheat from the chaff.