78 G. I. Gurdjieff Quotes

G. I. Gurdjieff quotes

1. Faith of consciousness is freedom Faith of feeling is weakness Faith of body is stupidity.

2. Love of consciousness evokes the same in response Love of feeling evokes the opposite Love of body depends only on type and polarity.

3. Hope of consciousness is strength Hope of feelings is slavery Hope of body is disease.

4. Every one of those unfortunates during the process of existence should constantly sense and be cognizant of the inevitability of his own death as well as of the death of everyone upon whom his eyes or attention rests. Only such a sensation and such a cognizance can now destroy the egoism completely crystallized in them that has swallowed up the whole of their Essence, and also that tendency to hate others which flows from it.

5. The sole means now for the saving of the beings of the planet Earth would be to implant again into their presences a new organ ... of such properties that every one of these unfortunates during the process of existence should constantly sense and be cognizant of the inevitability of his own death as well as the death of everyone upon whom his eyes or attention rests. Only such a sensation and such a cognizance can now destroy the egoism completely crystallized in them.

6. From my point of view, he can be called a remarkable man who stands out from those around him by the resourcefulness of his mind, and who knows how to be restrained in the manifestations which proceed from his nature, at the same time conducting himself justly and tolerantly towards the weaknesses of others.

7. Faith can not be given to man. Faith arises in a man and increases in its action in him not as the result of automatic learning, that is, not from any automatic ascertainment of height, breadth, thickness, form and weight, or from the perception of anything by sight, hearing, touch, smell or taste, but from understanding. Understanding is the essence obtained from information intentionally learned and from all kinds of experiences personally experienced.

8. It is very difficult to explain what takes place in me when I see or hear anything majestic which allows no doubt that it proceeds from the actualization of Our Maker Creator. Each time, my tears flow of themselves. I weep, that is to say, it weeps in me, not from grief, no, but as if from tenderness.

9. Formerly, it may be said, my whole being was possessed by egoism. All my manifestations and experiencings flowed from my vanity. The meeting with Father Giovanni killed all this, and from then on there gradually arose in me that 'something' which has brought the whole of me to the unshakable conviction that, apart from the vanities of life, there exists a 'something else' which must be the aim and ideal of every more or less thinking man, and that it is only this something else which may make a man really happy and give him real values, instead of the illusory 'goods' with which in ordinary life he is always and in everything full.

10. KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING ARE QUITE DIFFERENT. Only understanding can lead to being, whereas knowledge is but a passing presence in it.

11. If you want to lose your faith, make friends with a priest.

12. Knowledge can be acquired by a suitable and complete study, no matter what the starting point is. Only one must know how to 'learn.' What is nearest to us is man; and you are the nearest of all men to yourself. Begin with the study of yourself; remember the saying 'Know thyself.'

13. There do exist enquiring minds, which long for the truth of the heart, seek it, strive to solve the problems set by life, try to penetrate to the essence of things and phenomena and to penetrate into themselves. If a man reasons and thinks soundly, no matter which path he follows in solving these problems, he must inevitably arrive back at himself, and begin with the solution of the problem of what he is himself and what his place is in the world around him. For without this knowledge, he will have no focal point in his search. Socrates' words, 'Know thyself' remain for all those who seek true knowledge and being.

14. I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself.

15. All religions speak about death during this life on earth. Death must come before rebirth. But what must die? False confidence in one's own knowledge, self-love and egoism. Our egoism must be broken. We must realize that we are very complicated machines, and so this process of breaking is bound to be a long and difficult task. Before real growth becomes possible, our personality must die.

16. The power of changing oneself lies not in the mind, but in the body and the feelings. Unfortunately, however, our body and our feelings are so constituted that they don't care a jot about anything so long as they are happy. They live for the moment and their memory is short. The mind alone lives for tomorrow. Each has its own merits. The merit of the mind is that it looks ahead. But it is only the other two that can 'do.'

17. Sincerity is the key which will open the door through which you will see your separate parts, and you will see something quite new. You must go on trying to be sincere. Each day you put on a mask, and you must take it off little by little.

18. LIBERATION LEADS TO LIBERATION. These are the first words of truth - not truth in quotation marks but truth in the real meaning of the word; truth which is not merely theoretical, not simply a word, but truth that can be realized in practice. The meaning behind these words may be explained as follows: By liberation is meant the liberation which is the aim of all schools, all religions, at all times. This liberation can indeed be very great. All men desire it and strive after it. But it cannot be attained without the first liberation, a lesser liberation. The great liberation is liberation from influences outside us. The lesser liberation is liberation from influences within us.

19. Man such as we know him, is a machine.

20. In speaking of evolution it is necessary to understand from the outset that no mechanical evolution is possible. The evolution of man is the evolution of his consciousness.

21. One of man's important mistakes, one which must be remembered, is his illusion in regard to his I. Man such as we know him, the 'man-machine,' the man who cannot 'do,' and with whom and through whom everything 'happens,' cannot have a permanent and single I. His I changes as quickly as his thoughts, feelings and moods, and he makes a profound mistake in considering himself always one and the same person; in reality he is always a different person, not the one he was a moment ago.

22. Man has no permanent and unchangeable I. Every thought, every mood, every desire, every sensation, says 'I'.

23. Man has no individual I. But there are, instead, hundreds and thousands of separate small 'I's, very often entirely unknown to one another, never coming into contact, or, on the contrary, hostile to each other, mutually exclusive and incompatible. Each minute, each moment, man is saying or thinking, 'I'. And each time his I is different. Just now it was a thought, now it is a desire, now a sensation, now another thought, and so on, endlessly. Man is a plurality. Man's name is legion.

24. The being of two people can differ from one another more than the being of a mineral and of an animal. This is exactly what people do not understand. And they do not understand that knowledge depends on being. Not only do they not understand this latter but they definitely do not wish to understand it

25. In literature, science, art, philosophy, religion, in individual and above all in social and political life, we can observe how the line of the development of forces deviates from its original direction and goes, after a certain time, in a diametrically opposite direction, still preserving its former name.

26. Objective knowledge, the idea of unity included, belongs to objective consciousness. The forms which express this knowledge when perceived by subjective consciousness are inevitably distorted and, instead of truth, they create more and more delusions. With objective consciousness it is possible to see and feel the unity of everything. But for subjective consciousness the world is split up into millions of separate and unconnected phenomena. Attempts to connect these phenomena into some sort of system in a scientific or philosophical way lead to nothing because man cannot reconstruct the idea of the whole starting from separate facts and they cannot divine the principles of the division of the whole without knowing the laws upon which this division is based.

27. RELIGION IS DOING; a man does not merely think his religion or feel it, he lives his religion as much as he is able, otherwise it is not religion but fantasy or philosophy. Whether he likes it or not he shows his attitude towards religion by his actions and he can show his attitude only by his actions. Therefore if his actions are opposed to those which are demanded by a given religion he cannot assert that he belongs to that religion.

28. In right knowledge the study of man must proceed on parallel lines with the study of the world, and the study of the world must run parallel with the study of man.

29. When we speak of prayer or of the results of prayer we always imply only one kind of prayer - petition, or we think that petition can be united with all other kinds of prayers.: Most prayers have nothing in common with petitions. I speak of ancient prayers; many of them are much older than Christianity. These prayers are, so to speak, recapitulations; by repeating them aloud or to himself a man endeavors to experience what is in them, their whole content, with his mind and his feeling.

30. A man may be born, but in order to be born he must first die, and in order to die he must first awake.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

31. A man will renounce any pleasures you like but he will not give up his suffering.

32. It is the greatest mistake to think that man is always one and the same. A man is never the same for long. He is continually changing. He seldom remains the same even for half an hour.

33. Man has the possibility of existence after death. But possibility is one thing and the realization of the possibility is quite a different thing.

34. You must understand that ordinary efforts do not count; only superefforts count.

35. Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave.

36. Like what 'it' does not like.

37. The worse the conditions of life the more productive the work, always provided you remember the work.

38. Remember your self always and everywhere.

39. Remember you come here having already understood the necessity of struggling with yourself - only with yourself. Therefore thank everyone who gives you the opportunity.

40. Here we can only direct and create conditions, but not help.

41. Only help him who is not an idler.

42. Respect every religion.

43. Don't judge a man by the tales of others.

44. By teaching others you will learn yourself.

45. Rest comes not from the quantity but from the quality of sleep.

46. One of the best means for arousing the wish to work on yourself is to realize that you may die at any moment. But first you must learn how to keep it in mind.

47. Conscious faith is freedom. Emotional faith is slavery. Mechanical faith is foolishness.

48. Here there are neither Russians nor English, Jews nor Christians, but only those who pursue one aim - to be able to be.

49. A ceremony is a book in which a great deal is written. Anyone who understands can read it. One rite often contains more than a hundred books.

50. A 'sin' is something which is not necessary.

51. Beware of someone who wants to teach you something.

52. If you help others, you will be helped, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps in one hundred years, but you will be helped. Nature must pay off the debt... It is a mathematical law and all life is mathematics.

53. In properly organized groups no faith is required; what is required is simply a little trust and even that only for a little while, for the sooner a man begins to verify all he hears the better it is for him.

54. Patience is the mother of will.

55. Self-observation brings man to the realization of the necessity of self-change. And in observing himself a man notices that self-observation itself brings about certain changes in his inner processes. He begins to understand that self-observation is an instrument of self-change, a means of awakening.

56. Take the 'wisdom' of the East and the ''energy' of the West and then seek.

57. There are two struggles - inner-world struggle and outer-world struggle, but never can these two make contact, to make data for the third world. Not even God gives this possibility for contact between inner- and outer-world struggles; not even your heredity. Only one thing - you must make intentional contact between outer-world struggle and inner-world struggle; only then can you make data for the Third World of Man, sometimes called World of the Soul.

58. Those who have not shown anything during their responsible life will have nothing to reap in the future.

1. The man has the possibilities of getting free gradually from the mechanical laws.

2. If you meditate and the Devil comes, make the Devil meditate.

3. It is only by grounding our awareness in the living sensation of our bodies that the 'I Am,' our real presence, can awaken.

4. Try to understand what I am saying: everything is dependent on everything else, everything is connected, nothing is separate. Therefore everything is going in the only way it can go. If people were different everything would be different. They are what they are, so everything is as it is.

5. To know all, it is necessary to know very little; but to know that very little, one must first know pretty much.

6. The degree of consciousness corresponds to the degree of density or the speed of vibrations. The denser the matter, the less conscious it is.

7. Knowledge by itself does not give understanding. Nor is understanding increased by an increase of knowledge alone. Understanding depends upon the relation of knowledge to being...It appears only when a man feels and senses what is connected with it.

8. A miracle is not the breaking of physical laws, but rather represents laws which are incomprehensible to us.

9. If a man could understand all the horror of the lives of ordinary people who are turning around in a circle of insignificant interests and insignificant aims, if he could understand what they are losing, he would understand that there can only be one thing that is serious for him - to escape from the general law, to be free. What can be serious for a man in prison who is condemned to death? Only one thing: How to save himself, how to escape: nothing else is serious.

10. That which is easy is bad for your inner life.

11. My way is to develop the hidden potentialities of man; a way that is against Nature and against God.

12. It is the same with everything else, with food, with pleasures, with sleep; with everything there is a limit to what is necessary. After this "sin" begins. This is something that must be grasped, a "sin" is something which is not necessary.

13. The first fundamental law of the universe is the law of three forces, of three principles, or , as it is often called, the law of three. According to this law every action, every phenomenon in all worlds without exception, is the result of a simultaneous action of three forces- the positive, the negative, and the neutralizing.

14. He who has gotten rid of the disease of "tomorrow" has a chance of achieving what he is here for.

15. Time began when you were born. It will end when you die.

16. Humanity is moving in a circle. The progress in mechanical things of the past hundred years has proceeded at the cost of losing many other things which perhaps were much more important for it.

17. You can never awaken using the same system that put you to sleep in the first place.

18. Ancient art has a specific inner content. At one time, art possessed the same purpose that books do in our day, namely: to preserve and transmit knowledge. In olden days, people did not write books, they incorporated their knowledge into works of art. We would find a great many ideas in the works of ancient art passed down to us, if only we knew how to read them.

19. The crowd neither wants nor seeks knowledge, and the leaders of the crowd, in their own interests, try to strengthen its fear and dislike of everything new and unknown. The slavery in which mankind lives is based upon this fear.

20. If a sufficient number of people who wanted to stop war really did gather together, they would first of all begin by making war upon those who disagreed with them. And it is still more certain that they would make war on people who also want to stop wars but in another way.