Quotes by Sufis - Page 8

Laziness is always your fault. It is the sign that a man has persevered in uselessness for too long.
Idries Shah
Remember the proverb: 'A sign is enough for the alert, but a thousand counsels are not enough for the negligent.
Idries Shah
Greed harms you: generosity helps you. This is why it has been said: 'Greed is the mother of incapacity'.
Idries Shah
if... says: 'Do not be greedy, be generous', you may inwardly interpret this in such a manner that you will develop a greed for generosity
Idries Shah
The Sufi is one who does what others do – when it is necessary. He is also one who does what others cannot do – when it is indicated.
Idries Shah
Most of the supposedly Sufi organizations, exercises and “orders” are in fact only of archaeological interest.
Idries Shah
However fast you run, or however skilfully, you can’t run away from your own feet.
Idries Shah
The lightning said to the oak tree: ‘Stand aside, or take what is coming to you!
Idries Shah
None should say: ‘I can trust,’ or ‘I cannot trust’ until he is master of the option, of trusting or not trusting.
Idries Shah
Sufism, they say, is that which enables one to understand religion, irrespective of its current outward form.
Idries Shah
A Sufi is alive to the value of time, and is given, every moment, to what that moment demands.
Idries Shah
The barren branches may appear inelegant: They are, to the cook, the means to make his fire.
Idries Shah
The tongue is the best masseur of furrowed brows.
Idries Shah
In the realm of Greater Understanding, the workshop is dismantled after the work is finished.
Idries Shah
What you are seeking in your retreat, I see clearly in every road and alleyway.
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetEnvyEnvy devours good deeds, as a fire devours fuel.
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetThe JudgeA man appointed to be a judge has been killed without a knife.
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetAngerYou ask for a piece of advice. I tell you: 'Do not get angry.' He is strong who can withhold anger.
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetThe TongueA man slips with his tongue more than with his feet.
Idries Shah
Poor greedy one, wherever he runs He's after food, and death is after him.(Saadi)
Idries Shah
Patience is a garment which has never worn out.
Idries Shah
Saying of the ProphetUnderstandingSpeak to everyone in accordance with his degree of understanding.
Idries Shah
If you have no troubles – buy a goat.
Idries Shah
Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza. Worry: Something to make you unnecessarily ill.
Idries Shah
Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaPoverty: The result of marriage.
Idries Shah
Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaPenitent: Someone who has been made incapable of enjoying himself.
Idries Shah
Because sugar is not arsenic, many graves are full.
Idries Shah
Patience is bitter, but bears a sweet fruit.
Idries Shah
Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaWisdom: Something you can learn without knowing it.
Idries Shah
Hit your hand on a stone and expect it to hurt.
Idries Shah
How many friends would you have if you went from one to another asking them to conceal a dead body?
Idries Shah
The door of illumination is open to those for whom other doors are closed.
Idries Shah
A man must be a Salomon before his magical ring will work
Idries Shah
The process of learning is the process of discovering what really exists.
Idries Shah
He discards a quilt for fear of bugs.
Idries Shah
To bind one free man with love is better than to release a thousand slaves.
Idries Shah
The happiness of the superficial: when a man who has lost his donkey finds it again.
Idries Shah
In the distorting mirror of your mind, an angel can seem to have a devil's face.
Idries Shah
Life: sometimes the man on the saddle, sometimes the saddle on the man.
Idries Shah
The liar has a bad memory.
Idries Shah
There is something in man which can detect real love. We rub it out, or muffle it, by substitute-love.
Idries Shah
You must improve yourself on a higher level if you are to be able to help people, and not just weep over them.
Idries Shah
EXPECTATION If, from time to time, you give up expectation, you will be able to perceive what it is you are getting.
Idries Shah
Do not think that your magic ring will work if you are not yourself Solomon.
Idries Shah
A Sufi school comes into being in order to flourish and disappear, not to leave traces in mechanical ritual, or anthropologically survivals.
Idries Shah
Disappointment cannot exist without expectation. “The expected apricot is never as sweet when it reaches the mouth.
Idries Shah
among roses, be a rose, among thorns, be a thorn
Idries Shah
For every Pharoah there is a Moses.
Idries Shah
Humility is a teacher of itself. It is learnt by means of its practise.
Idries Shah
Saadi: Be a true renouncer, (zahid) and [you can even] ware satin.
Idries Shah
Humility has to precede instruction.
Idries Shah
Certain levels of human understanding cannot be attained, it is claimed, until the brain can work in more than one way.
Idries Shah
The basic urge toward mysticism is never, in the unaltered man, clear enough to be recognized for what it is.
Idries Shah
I am an idol worshipper; for I understand what idol worship means, and the idolater does not.
Idries Shah
Man (as he imagines himself to be), in general, is a possibility, not a fact.
Idries Shah
It is as true as anything else which can be spoken to say that all knowledge is really available everywhere.
Idries Shah
People change and needs change. So what was Sufism once is Sufism no more.
Idries Shah
The would-be Sufi needs guidance precisely because books, texts, while telling you what is needed, do not tell you when.
Idries Shah
Well-meant techniques such as arbitrary self-mortification, are useless.
Idries Shah
Why do people always wonder whether books are any good, without wondering whether they are themselves in a state to profit from them?
Idries Shah