Idries Shah

“You yourself are your own barrier – rise from within it.”

“Trust is needed before lessons can be learnt.”

“Definition of a SufiTo learn, people must give up a great deal, and this includes ritual as something from which they imagine they might learn. It is to emphasise this that Abu-Yaqub al-Susi, quoted in Kalabadhi's Taaruf, states that the Sufi is 'One who does not care when something is taken from him, but who does not cease to seek for what he has not.”

“Why do people always wonder whether books are any good, without wondering whether they are themselves in a state to profit from them?”

“It is not Sufism if it does not perform its function for you. A cloak is no longer a cloak if it does not keep a man warm.”

“From the beginning, from the age of Adam to the time of kingship: from the powerful, pardon: from the poor, sins.”

“Because there is a word for perfection, people will always imagine that they know it.”

“Be a dog, but don't be a younger brother.Proverb.”

“But the world itself, as well as special attitudes, properly understood, constitute the Sufi school.”

“All approaches to a study or an individual may start with a desire for attention. However they start, they must never end up in this manner.”

“Inner Knowledge -- You want to become wise in one lesson: First become a real human being.”

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

“To copy a virtue in another is more copying than it is virtue. Try to learn what that virtue is based upon.”

“The object of Sufi preparatory study, however, being to illustrate, expose and out-manoeuvre superficial ambition.”

“If I knew what two and two were – I would say Four!”

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

“Almost every day I am reminded of Saadi's reflection that there is no senseless tyranny like that of subordinates.”

“Learn about hornets from those who have been stung by them.”

“If you assume that it is there, you will generally not be far off the truth.”

“If you cannot laugh frequently and genuinely, you have no soul.”