top of page
Exlpore more Learning quotes

"I do not play this instrument so well as I should wish to, but I have always supposed that to be my own fault because I would not take the trouble of practicing."

"Humanity had to expand the limits of its consciousness to learn to ask the right questions."

"You need to study all the details of how you can achieve your goal."

"To submit one's self to one's gift is to submit oneself to education and self-development and to devote enough time to improve one's gift."

"God wants every Christian to avoid and not repeat the mistakes of the Israelites."

"It was a lesson that I would learn in time though it wasn't Hegbert who taught me."
Explore more quotes by Tahir Shah


"Move to a new country and you quickly see that visiting a place as a tourist, and actually moving there for good, are two very different things."


"In moments of great uncertainty on my travels, I have always felt that something is protecting me, that I will come to no harm."


"My father never told us how the stories worked. He didn't reveal the layers, the nuggets of information, the fragments of truth and fantasy. He didn't need to -- because, given the right conditions, the stories activated, sowing themselves."


"Back at the Chateau Windsor there was a rat-like scratching at the door of my room. Vinod, the youngest servant, came in with a soda water. He placed it next to the bag of toffees. Then he watched me read. I was used to being observed reading. Sometimes the room would fill like a railway station at rush hour and I would be expected to cure widespread boredom."


"Lured by the wilderness, and by the chance of spotting rare desert elephants, a few intrepid tourists make their way to the Skeleton Coast each year. It's just about as remote as any tourist destination on earth, but one that pays fabulous dividends."


"The very fact that a Frenchman was prepared, after tow minutes of conversation, to be so friendly towards anyone, especially one who had come from England, made me restless."


"During the days I felt myself slipping into a kind of madness. Solitary confinement has an astonishing effect on the mind. The trip was to stay calm and keep myself occupied. I spent hours working out how to break free. But trying to escape would have been instant suicide."


"Visit Cape Town and history is never far from your grasp. It lingers in the air, a scent on the breezy, an explanation of circumstance that shaped the Rainbow People. Stroll around the old downtown and it's impossible not to be affected by the trials and tribulations of the struggle. But, in many ways, it is the sense of triumph in the face of such adversity that makes the experience all the more poignant."


"As a travel writer I've specialized in gritty, fearful destinations, the kind of places that make a reader's hair stick on end."
bottom of page