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

- Idries Shah

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

- Idries Shah

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

- Idries Shah

If you want to make an ordinary man happy, or think that he is happy, give him money, power, flattery, gifts, honours. If you want to make a wise man…

- Idries Shah

Many things which are called 'secrets' are only things withheld from people until they can understand or effectively experience them.

- Idries Shah

The more wakeful a man is to the things which surround him, the more asleep is he, and his waking is worse than his sleep.

- Idries Shah

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

- Idries Shah

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

- Idries Shah

If you give what can be taken, you are not really giving. Take what you are given, not what you want to be given. Give what cannot be taken.

- Idries Shah