Idries Shah, Reflections Quotes
The word 'choice' is a fraud while people choose only what they have been taught to choose.
Opinion is usually something which people have when they lack comprehensive information.
Knowledge is something which you can use. Belief is something which uses you.
If, from time to time, you give up expectation, you will be able to perceive what it is you are getting.
Please, not again what you studied, how long you spent at it, how many books you wrote, what people thought of you - but: what did you learn?
The proverb says that 'The answer to a fool is silence'. Observation, however, indicates that almost any other answer will have the same effect in the long run.
To 'see both sides' of a problem is the surest way to prevent its complete solution. Because there are always more than two sides.
It is not only a matter of not caring who knows - it is also a matter of knowing who cares.
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.
Enemies are often former or potential friends who have been denied - or think that they have been denied - something.
The stupidest man I ever met had a favourite saying. It was: 'What do you think I am, stupid, or something?
History is not usually what has happened. History is what some people have thought to be significant.
Dramatic. A well developed sense of the dramatic has values beyond what people usually imagine. One of these is to realise the limitations of a sense of the dramatic.
When the ignorant have become numerous or powerful enough, they have been referred to by a special name. This names is 'the Wise'.
None should say: 'I can trust' or 'I cannot trust' until he is a master of the option, of trusting or not trusting.
Learn to be as analytical about things of which you are credulous as you are of those which you criticise.
People are always trying to understand.There is only one way to do that.It is to discover < + i + >why< + i + > you want to understand.
Water shrinks wool, urgency shrinks time.Shrinkage may be an advantage or the reverse, according to expectation.
I have heard all that you have had to say to me on your problems.You ask me what to do about them.It is my view that your real problem is that you are a member of the human race.Face that one first.
The stupidest man I ever met had a favourite saying.It was:'What do you think I am, stupid, or something?
What is sometimes thought to be clever is, significantly often, merely an advanced form of foolishness.
People cannot handle prejudice because they try to deal with the symptom. Prejudice is the symptom, wrong assumptions are the cause.'Prejudice is the daughter of assumption.
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.
A motto of the human race: Let me do as I like, and give me approval as well.
If a Manx cat tells you that it is trying to preserve its long, beautiful tail, you don't have to believe it - especially if you have eyes.
Knowledge is something which you can use.Belief is something which uses you.
Right time, right place, right people equals success.Wrong time, wrong place, wrong people equals most of the real human history.
The existence of relative truth does not prove the non-existence of universal truth.
Two people can illustrate crudity to you.The first is the crude man, whom you see perceiving the diamond as a stone.The other is the refined man, who makes clear to you the crudity of the first one.
Almost every day I am reminded of Saadi's reflection that there is no senseless tyranny like that of subordinates.
You say that this society will come to an end, because societies always have done so. I wonder whether they have ended because they were not really societies at all.
Presence and AbsenceA certain person may have, as you say, a wonderful presence: I do not know. What I do know is that he has a perfectly delightful absence.
EXPECTATION If, from time to time, you give up expectation, you will be able to perceive what it is you are getting.
None should say: ‘I can trust, ’ or ‘I cannot trust’ until he is master of the option, of trusting or not trusting.
The lightning said to the oak tree: ‘Stand aside, or take what is coming to you!
Laziness - The laziness of adolescence is a rehearsal for the incapacity of old age.
None should say : 'I can trust, ' or 'I cannot trust' until he is a master of the option, of trusting or not trusting.
Because there is a word for perfection, people will always imagine that they know it.
When the human being says:'It is not true...'He may mean:'I don't know about it, so I think it is untrue.'Or:'I don't like it.
