Top 100 Shah Quotes
#1. Helping others
I order you to assist any oppressed person, whether he is a Moslem or not.
Idries Shah
#2. I am very clear that when I work with a director what he or she says is the last word.
Shah Rukh Khan
#4. Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.
Idries Shah
#5. If you cannot sit on a throne like a king, seize, like a tent-pitcher, the rope of the Royal tent.
Idries Shah
#6. I'd rather sink trying to be different, than stay afloat like everyone else
Shah Rukh Khan
#7. It is stupid on my part to think of banning the media.
Shah Rukh Khan
#8. Our heads are filled with 'knowledge', a knowledge that in some areas pre-empts our seeing anything at all.
Idries Shah
#9. At the dealership, I pulled out the sieve and toyed with it threateningly. When the salesman was ready for me, I held it up, told him I was not a tourist and demanded a large discount.
Tahir Shah
#10. People used to play with toys.
Now the toys play with them.
Idries Shah
#11. It is not far-fetched to draw a line from Operation Ajax through the Shah's repressive regime and the Islamic Revolution to the fireballs that engulfed the World Trade Center in New York.
Stephen Kinzer
#13. But one may say something and yet not be able to do it. Try, for instance, lifting yourself up by the bootstraps.
Idries Shah
#14. In the distorting mirror of your mind, an angel can seem to have a devil's face.
Idries Shah
#15. An egocentric pessimist is a person who thinks he hasn't changed, but that other people are behaving worse than before.
Idries Shah
#16. 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.
Idries Shah
#17. The union of the mind and intuition which brings about illumination, and the development which the Sufis seek, is based upon love.
Idries Shah
#18. It is not always a question of the Emperor having no clothes on. Sometimes it is, 'Is that an Emperor at all?
Idries Shah
#19. If you are 'humble', it may help you in ordinary life. If you are not, you will get nowhere in higher things.
Idries Shah
#20. The barren branches may appear inelegant: They are, to the cook, the means to make his fire.
Idries Shah
#21. Whatever has made, or does make, or may make music, should be held sacred as the golden bridle-bit of the Shah of Persia's horse,and the golden hammer, with which his hoofs are shod.
Herman Melville
#22. BARQI: AESTHETICS IS ONLY THE LOWEST FORM OF PERCEPTION OF THE REAL.
Idries Shah
#23. Bombay is a city where gossip is treated as a commodity.
Tahir Shah
#24. You know, I think we Indians are afraid to show and celebrate our happiness, lest things change around. But I feel that it's okay to be sad and okay to show when you are happy.
Shah Rukh Khan
#25. A dried plant is nothing but a sign to plant a new one
Priyansh Shah
#26. Move to a new country and you quickly see that visiting a place as a tourist, and actually moving there for good, are two very different things.
Tahir Shah
#27. The desert was bad, but nothing could compare with the horrors of a tropical rain forest.
Tahir Shah
#28. Learn about hornets from those who have been stung by them.
Idries Shah
#29. EPITAPH OF JALALUDIN RUMI
When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men.
Idries Shah
#30. The people of the world have a fixed destiny. But the spiritually developed receive what is "not" in their destiny.
Idries Shah
#31. 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.
Idries Shah
#32. Great men are great until they know it. Saints are holy until they know it.
Idries Shah
#33. In Morocco," said Osman, "word spreads like a fire tearing through the depths of Hell.
Tahir Shah
#34. I know it's very idealistic and utopian, but I believe we need to just let everyone not be judged in terms of religion, groups or nations or region.
Shah Rukh Khan
#35. Sufis aim to refine human consciousness. This is Sufi mysticism: not mystification or magic, but a specific Path.
Idries Shah
#36. You can perceive a person's aspiration if it is genuine, because this creates a change in the emanations from such a person.
Idries Shah
#37. Remedy
Your medicine is in you, and you do not observe it. Your ailment is from yourself, and you do not register it.
Hazrat Ali
Idries Shah
#38. There is nothing like a train journey for reflection.
Tahir Shah
#39. Death
If he is a good man, death will be a release;
If he is a bad one, it will release others from him.
Idries Shah
#40. Rumi speaks of people who rely upon the written word as sometimes being no more than donkeys laden with books.
Idries Shah
#41. The spirit is the mirror; the body is the rust.
(Divan-i-Shamsi Tabriz)
Idries Shah
#42. Saying of the Prophet
Obligation to Learn
The pursuit of knowledge is obligatory on every Muslim.
Idries Shah
#43. Whenever I start feeling too arrogant about myself, I always take a trip to the U.S. The immigration guys kick the star out of my stardom.
Shah Rukh Khan
#45. Iran's most formidable modern leader, Reza Shah Pahlavi, was obsessed with the idea of building a steel mill, but in 1941, soon after he assembled all the components, Allied armies invaded Iran, and the project had to be abandoned.
Stephen Kinzer
#46. Those who can't, try: those who can, don't have to.
Idries Shah
#47. People change and needs change. So what was Sufism once is Sufism no more.
Idries Shah
#48. Whoever might perfume a scorpion
Will not thereby escape its sting. Bahaudin Naqshband
Idries Shah
#49. Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.
Idries Shah
#50. With enough information, it is almost impossible "not" to predict people's action.
Idries Shah
#51. Assume that you are part-hypocrite and part heedless, and you will not be far wrong.
Idries Shah
#52. Money spent on good-quality gear is always money well spent.
Tahir Shah
#53. No duty is ignoble. What can be ignoble is the sight of people trying not to be ignoble.
Idries Shah
#54. You fear tomorrow: yet yesterday is just as dangerous.
Idries Shah
#55. Humility is a teacher of itself. It is learnt by means of its practise.
Idries Shah
#56. Opportunity's precious, and time is a sword.
Idries Shah
#57. I love being recognized, I love people liking me, I love the fact that people scream when I go out. I think I'll miss all that when it's taken away.
Shah Rukh Khan
#58. Whatever goes into a salt-mine becomes salt.
Idries Shah
#59. When I think back on it, of course I got lucky and got great directors and good breaks but all that was the physical part. But what made me a star was that I could take a chance and not have anything to worry about in terms of losing.
Shah Rukh Khan
#60. Information about the activities of one body of Sufis may be harmful to the potential of another.
Idries Shah
#61. These lecture provide material for the consideration of common factors, in theory and in development, from the viewpoint of the idea of surrender to the Divine Will, reviewing some aspects of the interplay between Christians and Moslems, and introducing material from and about Sufis.
Idries Shah
#62. Reality is only as true as it is perceived. Reality does not change. How it is perceived does.
Murad S. Shah
#63. None of them seemed to mind sliding around in the faeces and choking in the smoke. They were determined not to miss the opportunity of watching a foreigner make a fool of himself.
Tahir Shah
#64. Man (and woman) has an infinite capacity for self-development. Equally, he has an infinite capacity for self-destruction. A human being may be clinically alive and yet, despite all appearances, spiritually dead.
Idries Shah
#65. You must empty out the dirty water before you fill the pitcher with clean.
Idries Shah
#66. In Morocco, before you even get to the matter of the sale, you have to coax the owner to sell.
Tahir Shah
#67. I'm a fool, that I should simply trick the tourists like everyone else. after all, most of them will never come back. and what are tourists for but for tricking?
Tahir Shah
#68. One should not pray if that prayer is vanity.
Idries Shah
#69. Explorers like to pretend that they are a select breed of people with iron nerve and an ability to endure terrible hardship.
Tahir Shah
#70. On a hard jungle journey nothing is so important as having a team you can trust.
Tahir Shah
#72. There is only one thing I can say about the Shah- he knows how to draw a crowd.
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi
#73. Much religious teaching in the world is in reality a confused or deteriorated form, very different from its roots.
Idries Shah
#74. Never follow any impulse to teach, however strong it might be. The command to teach is not felt as an impulsion.
Idries Shah
#75. Proverbs and truisms are for this reason dangerous, because they produce blindness or non-thought.
Idries Shah
#76. There can never be a king in a free country of honourable people! Monarch, Kaiser, emperor, dictator, Caesar or shah, they all belong to the submissive and weak minded societies!
Mehmet Murat Ildan
#77. The pursuit of illusion is not about studying for prizes, or for study's sake. There's no right or wrong, no pass or fail.
Tahir Shah
#79. Right time, right place, right people equals success.
Wrong time, wrong place, wrong people equals most of the real human history.
Idries Shah
#80. The Apparent is the Bridge to the Real
Idries Shah
#81. The selection and following of a spiritual guide is the most important duty of a Sufi.
Idries Shah
#82. Talent is the presence of ability and absence of understanding about the source and operation of knowledge.
Idries Shah
#83. More or less we are all Selfish. When it's come to Friendship, I do think that fish cant jump onto the ship!
Shah Moazzem
#84. The problems of life are not there merely to be solved. They are there to lead you into the adventure of life.
Prashant Shah
#85. Knowledge. How curious that a man who closes his hand upon air so often thinks that he has a ruby within his grasp.
Idries Shah
#86. Stories are not like the real world; they aren't held back by what we know is false or true. What's important is how a story makes you feel inside.
Tahir Shah
#87. Saying of the Prophet
Truth
Speaking the truth to the unjust is the best of holy wars.
Idries Shah
#89. In some warped way, having an embalmed body with us made perfect sense.
Tahir Shah
#90. During the days I felt myself slipping into a kind of madness. Solitary confinement has an astonishing effect on the mind. The trip was to stay calm and keep myself occupied. I spent hours working out how to break free. But trying to escape would have been instant suicide.
Tahir Shah
#91. To Succeed, you must reach for the stars, and let your imagination find its own path
Tahir Shah
#92. It's amazing how you could be with someone for years and yet not love them in the same intensity as; you do love someone else, the very moment you meet them.
Hafsa Shah
#93. The Path is not to be found anywhere except in human service
Idries Shah
#94. People talk about Bollywood being very kitsch, and just songs and dances, and over the top and colorful.
Shah Rukh Khan
#95. Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Poverty: The result of marriage.
Idries Shah
#96. The inertia of a jungle village is a dangerous thing. Before you know it your whole life has slipped by and you are still waiting there.
Tahir Shah
#97. THE BIRD AND THE WATER
A bird which has not heard of fresh water
Dips his beak in salt-water year after year.
(Anwar-i-Suhaili)
Idries Shah
#98. Unbelief and belief are both marching on His road, while both are saying, 'He is one and He has no associates'.
Idries Shah
#99. But the Sufis work IN the world, and therefore WITH 'things of the world'.
Idries Shah
#100. 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.
Idries Shah
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