Idries Shah Quotes

I often sit back and say, 'Be sure about what I believe.'

It’s critical that we know what we believe, no matter what we feel...that we know what is true, no matter what we see.

Doubt is the vestibule through which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom.

Intelligence must follow faith, never precede it, and never destroy it.

To believe only possibilities is not faith, but mere philosophy.

Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation.

Religion gives you a sense of certainty. It makes you feel that you have the right answers to really big questions and that you've grasped the truth.

If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything.

Faith... must be enforced by reason... when faith becomes blind it dies.

What do we believe? Why do we believe it?

Faith is a continuation of reason.

I believe though I do not comprehend, and I hold by faith what I cannot grasp with the mind.

Man is what he believes.

I was raised with the notion that it was OK to ask questions, and it was OK to say, I'm not sure. I believe, but I'm not quite so certain about the resurrection.

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.

Faith is important to me.

Faith is more basic than language or theology.

Faith accepts no commands. It accepts only what comes to it by way of reasoned conviction.

Sometimes I doubt, and sometimes I believe. I like not making myself believe when I am doubting and not making myself doubt when I am believing.

Faith is important, even if you're not religious. You need to have beliefs in people or things.

I just believe what I believe.

For dear me, why abandon a belief Merely because it ceases to be true

When we become advocates of a creed, something dies; we do not believe God, we only believe our belief about Him.

You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth of falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose you had to hang by that rope over a precipice. Wouldn't you then first discover how much you really trusted it?

Your faith is what you believe, not what you know.