Sufi Teachers Quotes

Sufi Teachers are not, as you might hope, people who make you feel peace and harmony. ~ Idries Shah

Many Sufis are not guides. ~ Idries Shah

You know what makes you a real Mississippian?" I rant or maybe just scream inwardly while flipping off the Confederate statue trapped in my rearview. "Surviving a Mississippi public education, that's what makes you a goddamn Mississippian. ... If you don't have giant gaps in geography -- entire countries you're unaware of, major religions you don't know exist -- then nope, not a Mississippian. If you had sober teachers who could even spell matriculate then you're from someplace fancy like Alabama. ~ Lee Durkee

There is no formula. We all must become spirited inventors. There's no single answer - not even a single starting point. Even the 'teachers' ... don't offer us the answer. They do offer us approaches, ways of thinking, possibilities we can adapt, and hope that might generate in us wholly new ideas. ~ Frances Moore Lappe

Phony gurus make themselves objects of adoration and worship. Real spiritual teachers aren't interested in adoration and worship. They like respect only because they realize respect will help the student. ~ Frederick Lenz

Or why should one refrain from burning hatred, whatever its basis--race, class, or ideology? Such hatred is in fact corroding many hearts today. Atheist teachers in the West are bringing up a younger generation in a spirit of hatred of their own society. Amid all the vituperation we forget that the defects of capitalism represent the basic flaws of human nature, allowed unlimited freedom together with the various human rights; we forget that under Communism (and Communism is breathing down the neck of all moderate forms of socialism, which are unstable) the identical flaws run riot in any person with the least degree of authority; while everyone else under that system does indeed attain 'equality'--the equality of destitute slaves. This eager fanning of the flames of hatred is becoming the mark of today's free world. Indeed, the broader the personal freedoms are, the higher the level of prosperity or even of abundance--the more vehement, paradoxically, does this blind hatred become. The contemporary developed West thus demonstrates by its own example that human salvation can be found neither in the profusion of material goods nor in merely making money. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

There are two species of teacher – the soft and the hard. Soft teachers might genuinely want to help, or they might have been broken in. They're usually nervous and afraid of kids, especially high school boys. The hard teachers are another thing entirely. They're like sharks – machines made for eating, with a finely tuned sense for blood in the water. ~ Lili St. Crow

When teachers are fully successful, they are successful beyond any of their conscious intentions about particular subjects: they make converts, they make souls that have been turned around to face a given way of being and moving in the world. ~ Wayne C. Booth

Here, let me break it down for you,
so you know what I say is true:
Teachers? Teachers make a difference!
Now what about you? ~ Taylor Mali

Culturally, I have always been part of the proletariat. I lived side by side with the sons of glassblowers, fishermen and smugglers. The stories they told were shaper satires about the hypocrisy of authority and the middle classes, the two-facedness of teachers and lawyers and politicians. I was born politicized. ~ Dario Fo

It was a cheap school, you know, and the teachers weren't very good. They could never answer questions properly."
"Very few teachers can," I{Jerry}said.
"Why not? They ought to."
I agreed. ~ Agatha Christie

For his part, Jazz knew he was handsome. It had nothing to do with looking in the mirror, which he rarely did. It had everything to do with the way the girls at school looked at him, the way they became satellites when he walked by, their orbits contorted by his own mysterious gravity. If attention could be measured like the Doppler effect, girls would show a massive blue shift in his presence. In the last year or so, he had even remarked the scrutiny of older women - teachers, cashiers at stores, the woman who delivered UPS packages to his house. What had once been a maternal flavor in their glances had taken on a lingering, cool sort of appraisal. He could almost hear them thinking, Not yet. But soon.
Despite his upbringing, despite the infamy of his father, they still watched him. Or maybe because of it. Maybe Howie was right about bad boys. ~ Barry Lyga

Your true educators and formative teachers reveal to you that the true, original meaning and basic stuff of your nature is something completely incapable of being educated or formed and is in any case something difficult of access, bound and paralysed. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

When we black people commit ourselves to living simply as a political action, as a way of breaking the stress caused by unrelenting hedonistic desire for material objects that are not needed for survival, or essential to well-being, we will not be talking about ebonics. We will be out in the streets demanding that the public schools have enough teachers so that all kids, cross color, can read and write in standard English and in Spanish too. ~ Bell Hooks

If we are to stop bullying in schools, we have to start with teachers and administrators. If we want to stop it, we have to stop it. ~ Chris Crutcher

I believe that all learning is relational. Teachers who try to teach without first having created a positive relationship with their students may only be wasting much of their great knowledge. Establish an encouraging relationship with a child, and you can teach him or her almost anything. Establish a strong therapeutic alliance with your client, and he or she might even be willing to build new neuronal pathways that indicate that trust, love, and unconditional worth are possible for him or her too. ~ Elsie Jones-Smith

When you study great teachers ... you will learn much more from their caring and hard work than from their style. ~ William Glasser

There are many teachers who could ruin you. Before you know it you could be a pale copy of this teacher or that teacher. You have to evolve on your own. ~ Berenice Abbott

The amount of psychology which is necessary to all teachers need not be very great. ~ William James

The older Kit gets, the less confident he feels judging other people as spouses or parents. These days, driving past the home of the Naked Hemp Society, he finds himself more curious than contemptuous about their easily ridiculed New Age ways. Why shouldn't they nurse their babies till age four? Why shouldn't they want to keep their children away from factory-farmed meats, from clothing soaked in fire-retardant chemicals, from dull-witted burned-out public school teachers whose tenure is all too easily approved? Why not frolic naked in the sprinkler
under the full moon, perhaps? Why not turn one's family into a small nurturing country protected by a virtual moat? ~ Julia Glass

For three years, all through junior high, my social death was grossly overdetermined. I had a large vocabulary, a giddily squeaking voice, horn-rimmed glasses, poor arm strength, too-obvious approval from my teachers, irresistible urges to shout unfunny puns, a near-eidetic acquaintance with J.R.R. Tolkien, a big chemistry lab in my basement, a penchant for intimately insulting any unfamiliar girl unwise enough to speak to me, and so on. ~ Jonathan Franzen

When I was in middle school, and teachers lectured about World War II, the conflict seemed impossibly distant and irrelevant. And it had only happened 15 years earlier. ~ Don Kardong

We have found that the most successful teachers in low-income communities operate like successful leaders. They establish a vision of where their students will be performing at the end of the year that many believe to be unrealistic. ~ Wendy Kopp

This has been the worst year because teachers do not understand bullying hurts. This has been a rough year because I had to fight for peace. But this has been the best year ever because I finally took up for myself. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

What topics fascinate me? Do I want to earn a degree or certificate? What would be fun, interesting, profitable, healthy, and/or beneficial for me to learn? What institutions or teachers do I want to learn from? What steps can I take today to propel me toward these goals? - My possessions: What types of possessions do I want or need in order to fulfill my divine function? What objects would make my life easier, safer, or more enjoyable? What types of furniture, clothing, cars, recreational vehicles, jewelry, equipment, toys, or other possessions have I always wanted? What possessions are weighing me down? What would I like to get rid of? Do I have anything I'd like to sell, donate, barter, or trade? When you've answered these questions for yourself, you'll be well on the way to setting healthy goals that will enrich and enhance your life! ~ Doreen Virtue

I ask about the sky, but the answer is about a rope. ~ Idries Shah

You are the salt of the earth." Some modern teachers seem to think our Lord said, You are the sugar of the earth, meaning that gentleness and winsomeness without curativeness is the ideal of the Christian. Our Lord's illustration of a Christian is salt, and salt is the most concentrated thing known. Salt preserves wholesomeness and prevents decay. It is a disadvantage to be salt. Think of the action of salt on a wound, and you will realize this. If you get salt into a wound, it hurts, and when God's children are amongst those who are "raw" towards God, their presence hurts. The person who is wrong with God is like an open wound, and when salt gets in it causes annoyance and distress and the person is spiteful and bitter. The disciples of Jesus in the present dispensation preserve society from corruption; the salt causes excessive irritation, which spells persecution for the saint. ~ Oswald Chambers

My foot slips on a narrow ledge; in that split second, as needles of fear pierce heart and temples, eternity intersects with present time. Thought and action are not different, and stone, air, ice, sun, fear, and self are one. What is exhilarating is to extend this acute awareness into ordinary moments, in the moment-by-moment experiencing of the lammergeier and the wolf, which, finding themselves at the center of things, have no need for any secret of true being. In this very breath that we take now lies the secret that all great teachers try to tell us ... the present moment. The purpose of mediation practice is not enlightenment' it is to pay attention even at unextraordinary times, to be of the present, nothing-but-the-present, to bear this mindfulness of now into each event of ordinary life. ~ Peter Matthiessen

I tried to avoid Mimi. Her presence seemed to call forth every rejection I'd ever experienced
the teachers who'd looked at me as though I held no promise, the boys who didn't like me back. Around her, I became fourteen again. ~ Melissa Bank

Ultimately, classroom teachers are the targets of this anger, as they are the public face of the education system. As a group, teachers work very hard with limited resources. They are called upon to equalize the inequities our society creates, and to offer not just equal educational opportunities, but equal educational outcomes to all children. ~ Christopher Danielson

Most of all, there is this truth: No matter how great your teachers may be, and no matter how esteemed your academy's reputation, eventually you will have to do the work by yourself. Eventually, the teachers won't be there anymore. The walls of the school will fall away, and you'll be on your own. The hours that you will then put into practice, study, auditions, and creation will be entirely up to you. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

It is important to realize that a person with the gift of discernment can often tell the difference between what is of God and what is not. Such a person can often point out false teachings or false teachers - he has an almost uncanny ability to perceive
hypocrisy, shallowness, deceit, or phoniness. ~ Billy Graham

Decency is not news; it is buried in the obituaries - but it is a force stronger than crime. I believe in the patient gallantry of nurses ... in the tedious sacrifices of teachers. I believe in the unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly in almost every home in the land. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Thousands of uninstructed Christians are being deceived today.
False teachers use high-sounding words
that seem like the epitome of scholarship and culture. They are intellectually clever and crafty ... adept at beguiling thoughtless, untaught men and women. ~ Billy Graham

The very best thing you can be in life is a teacher, provided you are crazy in love with what you teach, and that your classes consist of eighteen students or fewer. Classes of eighteen students or fewer are a family, and feel and act like one. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Kids' views are often just as valid as the teachers'. The best teachers are the ones that know that. ~ Morley Safer

When teachers or people in authority put me down or in one way or another tried to make me feel less than equal to what they thought I should be - my mother was on my side. It was amazing. ~ Maya Angelou

I was under the assumption that the first job you get out of college is the job you have for the rest of your life. That's how my parents were; my parents have been teachers for as long as I've known 'em. I was worried that I'd gotten into something that I was going to hate. ~ Jack McBrayer

[ ... ] and I switched to English literature, where so many frustrated poets end as pipe-smoking teachers in tweeds. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

I moved to Chicago and began attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The students and teachers I met in Chicago were politically active and also passionate about the same things that I was interested in. It was a great match for me. ~ Stephen Beal

Great teachers are wonderful. They change lives. We need them. The problem is that most schools don't like great teachers. They're organized to stamp them out, bore them, bureaucratize them, and make them average. Why ~ Seth Godin

The teacher will never be a parent. The parents are the parents. But they have to engage in some sort of active education beyond just teaching mathematics and French and English because the kids spend more time there than they do with their parents at that age. We have to accept that other adults will be part of our children's education and they will have bad teachers. That's going to happen. ~ Philippe Falardeau

I had three brilliant English teachers at secondary school. They found the writer in me. ~ Anthony Horowitz

To know how to suggest is the art of teaching. ~ Henri Frederic Amiel

His constant fight is with the Nafs (self-interest), the root of all disharmony and the only enemy of man. By crushing this enemy man gains mastery over himself; this wins for him mastery over the whole universe, because the wall standing between the self and the Almighty has been broken down. Gentleness, mildness, respect, humility, modesty, self-denial, conscientiousness, tolerance and forgiveness are considered by the Sufi as the attributes which produce harmony within one's own soul as well as within that of another. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

THEY WILL ALL BETRAY YOU, War said.
And they would. Whether it was her teachers or her friends or her family, they would all betray her. Maybe it would be couched in helpful terms, and maybe their faces would be brimming with sympathy. But in the end, they would all let her down.
They would all cut her down.
They would all slap labels on her and spoon-feed her appropriate words, wipe her mouth with their expectations. They
would wind her up and make her dance, and when they were done they'd put her away. They would keep doing it and doing it, until she was nothing more than a shell, a skin, something to slip on and slip off and tuck in at the corners.
They would ... unless she stopped them. ~ Jackie Morse Kessler

I've talked with a lot of teachers, classroom teachers after the Sandy Hook situation, and they say, look, we need to be looking at mental health. ~ Marsha Blackburn

Emotional attunement between teachers and learners is highlighted, as well as the central role of storytelling in traditional and contemporary learning. Research has also found that exploration and play, usually consigned to less important after-school activities, are central ~ Louis Cozolino

Deteriorated science is a cult, so is imitative or deteriorated Sufism. ~ Idries Shah

In any case, once you're dealing on a nonverbal level, ambiguity is unavoidable. But it's the ambiguity of all art, of a fine piece of music or a painting - you don't need written instructions by the composer or painter accompanying such works to 'explain' them. "Explaining" them contributes nothing but a superficial 'cultural' value which has no value except for critics and teachers who have to earn a living. ~ Stanley Kubrick