Shah Quotes

Tear down the mosque, the temple, everything in sight. But don't break a human heart. For that is where God resides.

Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.

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

The word 'choice' is a fraud while people choose only what they have been taught to choose.

Repeating the name of the Beloved I have become the Beloved myself. Whom shall I call the Beloved now?

We have not ceased to insist that an Islam of tolerance is advantageous to all Muslims, for the Afghans and the whole world and we will always defend it.

With an enthusiastic team you can achieve almost anything.

Enlightenment, and the death which comes before it, is the primary business of Varanasi.

God is found by those, With kind hearts.

EDUCATION IS VITAL TO DISCERN BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE AND LEARNING

A journey, I reflected, is of no merit unless it has tested you.

Knowledge is not gained, it is there all the time. It is the "veils" which have to be dissolved in the mind.

Trying to force something is the best way to stop it happening.

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

Respect was one thing. Survival was another. It was important that I kept my priorities in the right order.

I truly believe my job is to make sure people smile.

You must empty out the dirty water before you fill the pitcher with clean.

The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk.

Meditation - Before you learn how to meditate, you must unlearn what you think meditation might be.

Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun?

Success and failure are both part of life. Both are not permanent.

A motto of the human race: Let me do what I like, and give me approval as well.

Right time, right place, right people equals success. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong people equals most of the real human history.

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

Knowledge is something which you can use. Belief is something which uses you.

A king who feared wasps once decreed that they were abolished. As it happened, they did him no harm. But he was eventually stung to death by scorpions.

If, from time to time, you give up expectation, you will be able to perceive what it is you are getting.

When tomorrow comes, think tomorrow's thoughts.

Whenever I fail as a father or husband... a toy and a diamond always works.

I could be joking and smiling [with infidels] and then cutting their throats in the next second.

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

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.

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.

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?

Where does one go in a tremendous city like Calcutta to find insider information? I recalled India's golden rule: do the opposite of what would be normal anywhere else.

Calcutta's the only city I know where you are actively encouraged to stop strangers at random for a quick chat.

Effort makes some great men famous. Even greater effort enables other great men to remain unknown.

You are adrift while you still think that a means is an end.

There is no right time and right place for love... it can happen any time.

An egocentric pessimist is a person who thinks he hasn't changed, but that other people are behaving worse than before.

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

I believe that Marrakech ought to be earned as a destination. The journey is the preparation for the experience. Reaching it too fast derides it, makes it a little less easy to understand.

When Fortune knocks, open the door,' they say. But why should one make fortune knock, by keeping the door shut?

The Way of the Sufis cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning.

To 'see both sides' of a problem is the surest way to prevent its complete solution. Because there are always more than two sides.

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

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

Worry is a cloud which rains destruction.

When a belief becomes more than an instrument, you are lost. You remain lost until you learn what 'belief' is really for.

You have not forgotten to remember; You have remembered to forget. But people can forget to forget. That is just as important as remembering to remember - and generally more practical.