Reflections Quotes

“Right time, right place, right people equals success.
Wrong time, wrong place, wrong people equals most of the real human history.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“Opinion is usually something which people have when they lack comprehensive information.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“You need not wonder whether you should have an unreliable person as a friend. An unreliable person is nobody's friend.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun?”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“Knowledge is something which you can use.
Belief is something which uses you.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“A motto of the human race: Let me do as I like, and give me approval as well.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“Banality is like boredom: bored people are boring people, people who think that things are banal are themselves banal.
Interesting people can find something interesting in all things.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“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 happy - improve yourself!”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“To be obsessed by the idea of freedom, for instance, is itself a form of slavery. Such people are in the chains of the hope of freedom, and are therefore able to do little else than struggle with them.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“If, from time to time, you give up expectation, you will be able to perceive what it is you are getting.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“Please, not again what you studied, how long you spent at it, how many books you wrote, what people thought of you - but: what did you learn?”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“It is not important to have said a thing first, or best - or even most interestingly. What is important is to say it on the right occasion.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“You have not forgotten to remember;
You have remembered to forget.
But people can forget to forget. That is just as important as remembering to remember - and generally more practical.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“It is not only a matter of not caring who knows - it is also a matter of knowing who cares.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“People today are in danger of drowning in information; but, because they have been taught that information is useful, they are more willing to drown than they need be.

If they could handle information, they would not have to drown at all.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“From time to time ponder whether you are unconsciously saying:
'Truth is what I happen to be thinking at this moment.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“A real secret is something which only one person knows.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“Enemies are often former or potential friends who have been denied - or think that they have been denied - something.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“To 'see both sides' of a problem is the surest way to prevent its complete solution. Because there are always more than two sides.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

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

“The proverb says that 'The answer to a fool is silence'. Observation, however, indicates that almost any other answer will have the same effect in the long run.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“The more you look at 'common knowledge', the more you realise that it is more likely to be common than it is to be knowledge.
No real knowledge is common.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“The laziness of adolescence is a rehearsal for the incapacity of old age.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“Remembering and Forgetting
You have not forgotten to remember;
You have remembered to forget.
But people can forget to forget. That is just as important as remembering to remember – and generally more practical.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“The word 'choice' is a fraud while people choose only what they have been taught to choose.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“Effort makes some great men famous.
Even greater effort enables other great men to remain unknown.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“People used to play with toys.
Now the toys play with them.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“History is not usually what has happened. History is what some people have thought to be significant.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“It is not 'Have I got a chance?' It is more often: 'Have I seen my chance?”
― Idries Shah, Reflections