Idries Shah Quotes

Work will take everything you give it. It's up to you to work out what you want to give it.

I am not at all in favor of hard work for its own sake; many people who work very hard indeed produce terrible things, and should most certainly not be encouraged.

Day-dreams without work do not amount to anything; it is the actual work that counts.

People know I work hard.

I hit as hard and as fast in the first week of camp as I do in the last week of camp. So it doesn't matter if it's two weeks' notice or 10 weeks' notice.

I like people who work hard.

Fewer people are bent from hard work than are crooked from avoiding it.

All right, let's get to work again!-This is the spirit of people of genuine substance. Those who avoid hard work or neglect the things they have to do, who just while away their time, eating, sleeping, playing, watching television-such individuals will never experience true happiness, satisfaction or joy.

A lot of people think that success is luck and being in the right place at the right time. But I think if you’re willing to work harder than anybody else, you can create an awful lot of your own luck.

The idea that the harder you work, the better you're going to be is just garbage. The greatest improvement is made by the man or woman who works most intelligently.

Working really hard is what successful people do.

The fact that people who create are good workers tends to be lost.

Most people, especially successful people, are hard-working. They want to participate. They want to do things well.

The average man won't really do a day's work unless he is caught and cannot get out of it. There is plenty of work to do if people would do it.

I've had smarter people around me all my life, but I haven't run into one yet that can outwork me. And if they can't outwork you, then smarts aren't going to do them much good.

I place a higher value on work ethic than talent, because, in certain areas, you just need to cast, you need to cast actors with talent, you need to hire directors with talent, but I've worked with very talented people who have a poor work ethic, and the outcome is less desirable than people who are less talented and have an incredible work ethic.

The moral of it is this: If you are of any account, stay at home and make your way by faithful diligence; but if you are 'no account,' go away from home, and then you will have to work, whether you want to or not. Thus you become a blessing to your friends by ceasing to be a nuisance to them-if the people you go among suffer by the operation.

No man tastes pleasures truly, who does not earn them by previous business; and few people do business well, who do nothing else.

If you can't outsmart people, outwork them.

The people at the top don't work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.

The most unbearable thing about many successful people is not - as we flatteringly think - how lazy they are, but how hard they work.

Very few people know how to work. Inspiration, everybody has inspiration. That's just hot air.

Few people are lacking in capacity, but they fail because they are lacking in application.

Whatever success people have in a field, it's a result of hard work. If you ultimately succeed in one place, you must have worked hard there or somewhere else.

I always outworked everybody. Work never bothered me as it bothers some people.