Idries Shah Quotes

“As Ibn Arabi says: ‘Absolute existence is the source of all existence’.”

“The sight of God in woman is the most perfect of all." Ibn Arabi.”

“I was wedded to all the stars of the sky.There was not a single star left, and I married every one of them with great spiritual pleasure. Then I married the moon.”

“It is He who is revealed in every face, sought in every sign, gazed upon by every eye, worshipped in every object of worship, and pursued in the unseen and the visible. Not a single one of His creatures can fail to find Him in its primordial and original nature.al-Futûhât al-Makkiyya”

“Ibn El-Arabi wrote, ‘The Teacher is he who hears you, then unveils you to yourself”

“In my lap I had my dear little pug, the smell of whose ears will always be sweeter to me than all the perfumes of Araby and the scent of heliotrope combined.”

“Mostly, we talk to impress. And sometimes we shut up to impress, too.”

“You make me love books and the words inside them, because they talk about you. I know they do, they tell me that I love you, not as cliché as I write it, but in the warmest, deepest, calmest words I could ever read. I love you, like the books say it. And I'll find a better way to say it one day.”

“At some point in reading, we realize we have to read not just the books that we'd enjoy, but the books that move us, touch us, those that break us and hurt us, those which remind us that we will always be the ignorant of this life. We have to read the books that make us so little, make us a speck of dust or a grain of sand in a galaxy, until we feed our minds with all the knowledge we need, which is infinite in itself.”

“I'd rather be poor to my bones than be rich with your money, that is like a trigger, ready to be pulled in my face.”