Sufism Wisdom Quotes & Sayings

Ignorance is the Mother of Opposition — Idries Shah

No colour comes after black. — Idries Shah

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

Proverb. — Idries Shah

They say: 'Seek wisdom while you have the strength, or you may lose the strength without gaining wisdom. — Idries Shah

From the beginning, from the age of Adam to the time of kingship: from the powerful, pardon: from the poor, sins. — Idries Shah

One day the cub will become a wolf, even if it has been reared among the sons of man. — Idries Shah

If wine is the enemy of religion, I shall devour the enemy of religion. — Idries Shah

Words, they say, are the food of minds. But, like other foods, they can do little by themselves. — Idries Shah

Hazrat Ali, in a saying attributed to him, says: 'Man is in disguise, covered by his tongue'. — Idries Shah

Well-meant techniques such as arbitrary self-mortification, are useless. — Idries Shah

People carry on whole conversations in proverbs. But they are not LIVING the proverbs. — Idries Shah

It will pass, whatever it is. — Idries Shah

Farsi Couplet:
Naala-e zanjeer-e Majnun arghanoon-e aashiqanast
Zauq-e aan andaza-e gosh-e ulul-albaab neest


English Translation:
The creaking of the chain of Majnun is the orchestra of the lovers,
To appreciate its music is quite beyond the ears of the wise. — Amir Khusrau

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

There is no wisdom where there is no common sense: it cannot under those conditions find any expression. — Idries Shah

The sort of man who, throwing a stone upon the ground, would miss. — Idries Shah

ANDAKI: EFFORT IS NOT EFFORT WITHOUT ZAMAN, MAKAN, IKHWAN (RIGHT TIME, RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT PEOPLE). — Idries Shah

The clothes may vary, but the person is the same. — Idries Shah

The liar has a bad memory. — Idries Shah

The Sufis have said: 'The importance of something is in inverse proportion to its attractiveness. — Idries Shah

Rumi himself once said that counterfeit gold is only to be found because there is such a thing as real gold to be copied. — Idries Shah

Sufism," according to the Sufi, "is an adventure in living, necessary adventure. — Idries Shah

It is as true as anything else which can be spoken to say that all knowledge is really available everywhere. — Idries Shah

You can learn more in half an hour's direct contact with a source of knowledge (no matter the apparent reason for the contact or the subject of the transaction) than you can in years of formal effort. — Idries Shah

Before garden, vine or grape was in the world," writes one, "our soul was drunken with immortal wine. — Idries Shah

Scraps
The scraps from the meal of the Emir are larger than the gifts of halwa from the merchant.

Timur Fazil — Idries Shah

What you are pleased to call Sufism is merely the record of past method. — Idries Shah

Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Poverty: The result of marriage. — Idries Shah

A book, for the Sufis, is an instrument as much as it is something to give information. — Idries Shah

Rust through washing never became white. — Idries Shah

When you are still fragmentated, lacking certainty - what difference does it make what your decisions are? — 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

Sufism and yoga are one and the same thing. They are just words, in wisdom there is no difference. All the teachings are absolutely the same. They are only different paths to the One. — Irina Tweedie

A Sufi is one who is not bound by anything nor does he bind anything — Idries Shah

The spirit is the mirror; the body is the rust.
(Divan-i-Shamsi Tabriz) — Idries Shah

One should not pray if that prayer is vanity. — Idries Shah

Only the search for truth is valid, the desire for wisdom the motive. The method is assimilation, not study. — Idries Shah

Whatever goes into a salt-mine becomes salt. — Idries Shah

Is your division of Understanding into Greater and Lesser common to all Sufis? Nothing which is put into words is common to all Sufis. — Idries Shah

Inner Knowledge
You want to become wise in one lesson: First become a real human being. — Idries Shah

Whoever gives knowledge to a fool loses it
And who keeps it from the deserving does wrong. — Idries Shah

No effort makes a black crow into a white hawk. — Idries Shah

Nothing can defile the Sufi, and he in fact purifies everything." Abu-Turab al-Nakhsabi. — Idries Shah

A donkey eats a melon, it remains a donkey — Idries Shah

A short time in the presence of the Friends (the Sufis) is better than a hundred years' sincere, obedient dedication. — Idries Shah

Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
A fool:
A man trying to be honest with the dishonest. — Idries Shah

The power of Allah: no sound, no shape, no form. But when it manifests, none can resist it. — Idries Shah

Virtually all organisations known to you work largely by means of your greed. — Idries Shah

The stupidest man I ever met had a favourite saying. It was: 'What do you think I am, stupid, or something? — Idries Shah

Proverbs and truisms are for this reason dangerous, because they produce blindness or non-thought. — Idries Shah

Scholars of the East and West have heroically consecrated their whole working lives to making available, by means of their own disciplines, Sufi literary and philosophical material to the world at large. In many cases they have faithfully recorded the Sufis' own reiteration that the Way of the Sufis cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning. — Idries Shah

He discards a quilt for fear of bugs. — Idries Shah

Sufism is the doing in this lifetime what any fool will be doing in then thousand years' time. — Idries Shah

You make me a sinner if you stop me giving you hospitality. — Idries Shah

Anybody or anything may stand between you and knowledge if you are unfit for it. — Idries Shah

There is a Persian proverb: 'To test that which has been tested is ignorance.' To try to test something without the means of testing is even worse. — Idries Shah

Even if false gold makes a man happy:
At the mint it will be identified. — Idries Shah

Man (as he imagines himself to be), in general, is a possibility, not a fact. — Idries Shah

If you want to be a calligrapher, write, and write, and write. — Idries Shah

THE HEAVENS
To the mallet of the Highest Mind
The heavens are the smallest possible ball.
(Akhlaq-i-Mohsini) — Idries Shah

Opportunity's precious, and time is a sword. — Idries Shah

Have the nature of a dervish: then wear a stylish cap. — Idries Shah

And Rumi tells us, 'Soul receives from soul that knowledge, therefore not by book nor from tongue'. — Idries Shah

None meets harm who knows his capacity. — Idries Shah

Debating whether one trusts or not is a sign that one does not want to trust at all, and therefore is still incapable of it. — Idries Shah

It is necessary to note," says Rumi, "that opposite things work together, even though nominally opposed" (Fihi Ma Fihi). — Idries Shah

SENTENCES OF THE KHAJAGAN
GURGANI:
The teacher and the taught together produce the teaching. — Idries Shah

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

To bind one free man with love is better than to release a thousand slaves. — Idries Shah

The main problem is that most commentators are accustomed to thinking of spiritual schools as 'systems', which are more or less alike, and which depend upon dogma and ritual: and especially upon repetition and the application of continual and standardised pressures upon their followers.
The Sufi way, except in degenerate forms which are not to be classified as Sufic, is entirely different from this. — Idries Shah

The totality of life cannot be understood, so runs Sufi teaching, if it is studied only through the methods which we use in everyday living. — Idries Shah

Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Drugs: Source of the mystical experience of the ignorant. — Idries Shah

Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Wisdom: Something you can learn without knowing it. — Idries Shah

To send a kiss by messenger. — Idries Shah

The practice of the Sufis is too sublime to have a formal beginning, — Idries Shah

Remember the proverb: 'A sign is enough for the alert, but a thousand counsels are not enough for the negligent. — Idries Shah

He that is purified by love is pure; and he that is absorbed in the Beloved and hath abandoned all else is a Sufi.
Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah. — Idries Shah

He who is fortunately enlightened [the Sufi]
Knows that sophistry is from the devil and love from Adam. — Idries Shah

The door of illumination is open to those for whom other doors are closed. — Idries Shah

One lie will keep out forty truths. — Idries Shah

An old fool is worse than a young one: For the young may always grow wise. (Zohair) — Idries Shah

A man must be a Salomon before his magical ring will work — Idries Shah

He had found riches beyond worldly imagination. He had found the never ending well of love. — Soroosh Shahrivar

Our objective is to achieve, by the understanding of the Origin, the Knowledge which comes through experience. — Idries Shah

Sufis aim to refine human consciousness. This is Sufi mysticism: not mystification or magic, but a specific Path. — Idries Shah

The function of a nutrient is to become transmuted, not to leave unaltered traces. — Idries Shah

Saying of the Mulla Nasrudin. If I survive this life without dying, I'll be surprised. — Idries Shah

Each flies with its own kind: pigeon with pigeon, hawk with hawk. — Idries Shah

Be kind to the hawk and harm the sparrow. — Idries Shah

The degree of necessity determines the development of organs in man ... therefore increase your necessity. — Idries Shah

The worst of sages is a visitor of princes; the best of princes is a visitor of sages. — Idries Shah

People change and needs change. So what was Sufism once is Sufism no more. — Idries Shah

Man thinks many things. He thinks he is One. He is usually several. Until he becomes One, he cannot have a fair idea of what he is at all. — Idries Shah

The people of the world have a fixed destiny. But the spiritually developed receive what is "not" in their destiny. — Idries Shah

Humility is a teacher of itself. It is learnt by means of its practise. — Idries Shah

When you get a principle on which everyone is agreed, you get the beginning of complacency and deterioration. — Idries Shah

Sufism is therefore not 'Do as I say and not as I do', or even 'Do as I do', but 'Experience and you will know'. — Idries Shah

The Book of Wisdom. Simab said: 'I shall sell the Book of Wisdom for a hundred gold pieces, and some people will say that it is cheap.' Yunus Marmar said to him: 'And I shall give away the key to understanding it, and almost none shall take it, even free of charge. — 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

Patience is bitter, but bears a sweet fruit. — Idries Shah