P.D. Ouspensky Quotes

Seek the Path, do not seek attainment, Seek for the Path within yourself. Do not expect to hear the truth from others, nor to see it, or read it in books. Look for the truth in yourself, not without yourself.

The greatest barrier to consciousness is the belief that one is already conscious.

It is only when we realize that life is taking us nowhere that it begins to have meaning.

When a man begins to know himself a little he will see in himself many things that are bound to horrify him. So long as a man is not horrified at himself he knows nothing about himself.

In existing criminology there are concepts: a criminal man, a criminal profession, a criminal society, a criminal sect, and a criminal tribe, but there is no concept of a criminal state, or a criminal government, or criminal legislation. Consequently what is often regarded as "political" activity is in fact a criminal activity.

Love is the eternally burning fire in which humanity & all the world are being purified.

When one realises one is asleep, at that moment one is already half-awake.

Think about death. You do not know how much time remains to you. And remember that if you do not become different, everything will be repeated again, all foolish blunders, all silly mistakes, all loss of time and opportunity - everything will be repeated with the exception of the chance you had this time, because chance never comes in the same form.You will have to look for your chance next time. And in order to do this, you will have to remember many things, and how will you remember then if you do not remember anything now?

Man is a machine, but a very peculiar machine. He is a machine which, in right circumstances, and with right treatment, can know that he is a machine, and having fully realized this, he may find the ways to cease to be a machine. First of all, what man must know is that he is not one; he is many. He has not one permanent and unchangeable “I” or Ego. He is always different. One moment he is one, another moment he is another, the third moment he is a third, and so on, almost without end.

Divide in yourself the mechanical from the conscious, see how little there is of the conscious, how seldom it works, and how strong is the mechanical - mechanical attitudes, mechanical intentions, mechanical thoughts, mechanical desires.

I had come to the conclusion a long time ago that there was no escape from the labyrinth of contradictions in which we live except by an entirely new road, unlike anything hitherto known or used by us. But where this new or forgotten road began I was unable to say. I already knew then as an undoubted fact that beyond the thin film of false reality there existed another reality from which, for some reason, something separated us. The 'miraculous' was a penetration into this unknown reality.

Most people can accept the truth only in the form of a lie.

The strangest and most fantastic fact about negative emotions is that people actually worship them.

People live in sleep, do everything in sleep, and do not know they are asleep.

Art is the communication of ecstasy.

Begin with the possible: begin with one step. There is always a limit you cannot do more than you can do. If you try to do too much you will do nothing

You can understand other people only as much as you understand yourself and only on the level of your own being. This means you can judge other people's knowledge but you cannot judge their being. You can see in them only as much as you have in yourself. But people always make the mistake of thinking they can judge other people's being. In reality, if they wish to meet and understand people of a higher development than themselves they must work with the aim of changing their being.

If a man gives way to all his desires, or panders to them, there will be no inner struggle in him, no 'friction,' no fire. But if, for the sake of attaining a definite aim, he struggles with desires that hinder him, he will then create a fire which will gradually transform his inner world into a single whole.

It is by overcoming obstacles that man develops those qualities he needs.

Learn to see it in thyself and thou wilt understand the infinite essence, hidden in all illusory forms. Understand that the world which thou knowest is only one of the aspects of the infinite world, and things and phenomena are merely hierolgyphics of deeper ideas.

If you want to remember yourself, the best thing is not to think about yourself. As long as you think about yourself, you will not remember yourself.

Our ancestors were very rich and eminent people, and they left us an enormous inheritance, which we have completely forgotten, especially since the time when we began to consider ourselves the descendants of a monkey.

One cannot keep all old views and opinions and acquire new ones.

Desire is when you do what you want, will is when you can do what you do not want.

Man is a machine which reacts blindly to external forces and, this being so, he has no will, and very little control of himself, if any at all. What we have to study, therefore, is not psychology-for that applies only to a developed man-but mechanics. Man is not only a machine but a machine which works very much below the standard it would be capable of maintaining if it were working properly.