E E > E's Quotes

“Being is desirable because it is identical with Beauty, and Beauty is loved because it is Being. We ourselves possess Beauty when we are true to our own being; ugliness is in going over to another order; knowing ourselves, we are beautiful; in self-ignorance, we are ugly.”
― Plotinus

“The stars are like letters that inscribe themselves at every moment in the sky. Everything in the world is full of signs. All events are coordinated. All things depend on each other. Everything breathes together.”
― Plotinus

“It is in virtue of unity that beings are beings.”
― Plotinus, The Enneads

“When we look outside of that on which we depend we ignore our unity; looking outward we see many faces; look inward and all is one head. If a man could but be turned about, he would see at once God and himself and the All.”
― Plotinus, The Enneads

“The purification of the Soul is simply to allow it to be alone; it is pure when it keeps no company.”
― Plotinus, The Enneads

“What, then, is the achieved Sage?
One whose Act is determined by the higher phase of the Soul.”
― Plotinus, The Enneads

“You must learn not what people round you consider good or bad, but to act in life as your conscience bids you. An untrammelled conscience will always know more than all the books and teachers put together.”
― G.I. Gurdjieff, Meetings With Remarkable Men

“A man will not begin this work and will not consider it necessary until he becomes convinced that he possesses neither self-consciousness nor all that is connected with it, that is, unity or individuality, permanent "I," and will.”
― P. D. Ouspensky, The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution

“Even if a man has received certain material, he forgets to use it, forgets to observe himself; in other words, he falls asleep again and must always be awakened.”
― P. D. Ouspensky, The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution

“In reality people would sacrifice anything rather than their negative emotions.”
― P. D. Ouspensky, The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution

“As long as they think they can do something by themselves they will not be able to make any use of a school, even if they find it. Schools exist only for those who need them, and who know that they need them.”
― P.D. Ouspensky, The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution

“This finding or inventing of words for incomprehensible things has nothing to do with understanding. On the contrary, if we could get rid of half of our words perhaps we should have a better chance of a certain understanding.”
― P.D. Ouspensky, The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution

“When one realises one is asleep, at that moment one is already half-awake.”
― P.D. Ouspensky

“Desire is when you do what you want, will is when you can do what you do not want.”
― P.D. Ouspensky, The Fourth Way: An Arrangement by Subject of Verbatim Extracts from the Records of Ouspensky's Meetings in London and New York, 1921-46

“Q. But it seems to me there are circumstances that simply induce one to have negative emotions!

A. This is one of the worst illusions we have. We think that negative emotions are produced by circumstances, whereas all negative emotions are in us, inside us. This is a very important point. We always think our negative emotions are produced by the fault of other people or by the fault of circumstances. We always think that. Our negative emotions are in ourselves and are produced by ourselves. There is absolutely not a single unavoidable reason why somebody else's action or some circumstance should produce a negative emotion in me. It is only my weakness. No negative emotion can be produced by external causes if we do not want it. We have negative emotions because we permit them, justify them, explain them by external causes, and in this way we do not struggle with them.”
― P.D. Ouspensky, The Fourth Way: An Arrangement by Subject of Verbatim Extracts from the Records of Ouspensky's Meetings in London and New York, 1921-46

“I mean that you always know what results will come from one or another of your actions; but in a strange way you want to do one thing and get the result that could only come from another”
― P.D. Ouspensky, Strange Life of Ivan Osokin

“The only offering you can make to God is your increasing awareness.”
― Lalla translation by Coleman Barks

“My Master gave me just one rule:
Forget the outside, get to the inside of things.
I, Lalla, took that teaching to heart.
From that day, I’ve danced naked.”
― Lalla, I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Dĕd

“The mind is what sleeps. What recognizes itself as God is awake.”
― Lalla translation by Coleman Barks

“It’s so much easier to study than act,
to philosophise than go looking for the Self.
Losing the scriptures in the thick fog of my practice,
I stumbled on second sight.”
― Lalla, I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Dĕd

“shüñuk mä’ dān kōdum pānas

Alone, I crossed the Field of Emptiness,
dropping my reason and my senses.
I stumbled on my own secret there and flowered,
a lotus rising from a marsh.”
― Lalla, I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Dĕd

“The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.”
― Meister Eckhart, Sermons of Meister Eckhart

“Spirituality is not to be learned by flight from the world, or by running away from things, or by turning solitary and going apart from the world. Rather, we must learn an inner solitude wherever or with whomsoever we may be. We must learn to penetrate things and find God there.”
― Meister Eckhart

“Theologians may quarrel, but the mystics of the world speak the same language.”
― Meister Eckhart

“Nothing in all creation is so like God as stillness.”
― Meister Eckhart

“Wisdom consists in doing the next thing you have to do, doing it with your whole heart, and finding delight in doing it.”
― Meister Eckhart

“Some people prefer solitude. They say their peace of mind depends on this.
Others say they would be better off in church.
If you do well, you do well wherever you are. If you fail, you fail wherever you are.
Your surroundings don't matter. God is with you everywhere -- in the market place as well as in seclusion or in the church.
If you look for nothing but God, nothing or no one can disturb you.
God is not distracted by a multitude of things.
Nor can we be.”
― Meister Eckhart

“When the Soul wants to experience something she throws out an image in front of her and then steps into it.”
― Meister Eckhart

“I am as sure as I live that nothing is so near to me as God. God is nearer to me than I am to myself; my existence depends on the nearness and the presence of God.”
― Meister Eckhart

“We are all meant to be mothers of God...for God is always needing to be born.”
― Meister Eckhart