A Better Beard that Yours. 'All true devotees wear a beard,' said the Imam to his audience. 'Show me a thick and lustrous beard, and I'll show you a true believer!' 'My goat has a beard far bushier and longer than yours,' replied Hardin. 'Does that mean he is a better Muslim than you?

— Idries Shah

A book, for the Sufi's, is an instrument as much as it is something to give information.

— Idries Shah

A book, for the Sufi's, is an instrument as much as it is something to give information.... The key is the teacher.

— Idries Shah

Abu-Yaqui Asus: 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.

— Idries Shah

...action is in fact knowledge in operation. Right action stems from right knowledge. Right knowledge is acquired through the teacher.

— Idries Shah

A donkey eats a melon, it remains a donkey

— Idries Shah

Advice is priceless: when it becomes interference it is preposterous.

— Idries Shah

A great deal of thought is only a substitute for the thoughts that the individual would really find useful at the time.

— Idries Shah

Ali, Son of the Father of the Seeker Ali said: 'None may arrive at the Truth until he is able to think that the Path itself may be wrong. This is because those who can only believe that it must be right are not believers, but people who are incapable of thinking otherwise than they already think. Such people are not men at all. Like animals, they must follow certain beliefs, and during this time they cannot learn. Because they cannot be called “humanity”, they cannot arrive at the Truth.

— Idries Shah

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