Edward Thomas > Edward's Quotes

“Gnosis in Greek means knowledge, or to know. This does not refer to factual knowledge, but to an intuitive or spiritual understanding that comes from experience. The early Gnostics were mystics, people who knew that you could experience God for yourself instead of going into a church and being told what to believe. In Hebrew, to know means to experience—so, according to the Hebrews, knowing God means to experience Him. This is what most all early Hebrews and Christians were striving to do. Unfortunately, the Church got in the way of personal experience, by creating “organized religion.” There’s a saying which states, “Religion is for the masses, and mysticism is for the individual.” If you want to be a sheep and follow along with the masses to get a generic, candy-coated version of your spirituality, then follow the teachings of the Christian fathers. If you want to explore your own individual spirituality, you must go deeply inside yourself, instead of through church doors.”
― Jordan Maxwell, That Old-Time Religion

“We are made of the same stardust of which all things are made, and when we are immersed in suffering or when we are experiencing intense joy we are being nothing other than what we can’t help but be: a part of our world.”
― Carlo Rovelli, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

“The task is ... not so much to see what no one has yet seen; but to think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees.”
― Erwin Schrodinger

“I don't know what's the matter with people: they don't learn by understanding, they learn by some other way — by rote or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!”
― Richard Feynman

“Followers on social media who do not interact with others by liking or commenting on their posts are like observers who watch the street from behind the curtains without wanting people to notice them. They don’t want to interact; they only want to observe from a distance without taking part in what’s going on.”
― Nadine Sadaka Boulos

“In search for inner peace,
I listened to the beats of my heart.
I freed my thoughts from the anger within.
I felt the silence in my mind.
Inner stillness was what I needed.
Somewhere inside me I found my supreme self.”
― Nadine Sadaka Boulos

“Most often, people look at life through a screen of prejudice. They do not see reality as it is; they see it as they want it to be.”
― Nadine Sadaka Boulos

“Strange, I thought, how you can be living your dreams and your nightmares at the very same time.”
― Ransom Riggs, Hollow City

“How can a person have a sense of something if he does not have the germ of it within himself. What I am to understand must develop organically within me--and what I seem to learn is only nourishment--stimulation of the organism.”
― Novalis

“The letter is only an aid to philosophical communication, the actual essence of which consists in arousing a particular train of thought. Someone speaking thinks and produces—someone listening reflects—and reproduces. Words are a deceptive medium for what is already though—unreliable vehicles of a particular, specific stimulus. The true teacher is a guide. If the pupil genuinely desires truth it requires only a hint to show him how to find what he is seeking. Accordingly the representation of philosophy consists purely of themes—of initial propositions—principles. It exists only for autonomous lovers of truth. The analytical exposition of the theme is only for those who are sluggish or unpracticed. The latter must learn thereby how to fly and keep themselves moving in a particular direction.

Attentiveness is a centripetal force. The effective relation between that which is directed and the object of direction begins with the given direction. If we hold fast to this direction we are apodictically certain of reaching the goal that has been set.

True collaboration in philosophy then is a common movement toward a beloved world—whereby we relieve each other in the most advanced outpost, a movement that demands the greatest effort against the resisting element within which we are flying.”
― Novalis, Philosophical Writings

“The highest task of education is—to take command of one’s transcendental self—to be at once the I of its I. It is all the less to be wondered at that we lack complete insight and understanding for others. Without perfect self-understanding one will never learn to truly understand others.”
― Novalis, Philosophical Writings

“Life is the beginning of death. Life is for the sake of death. Death is at once the end and the beginning—at once separation and closer union of the self. Through death the reduction is complete”
― Novalis

“Heaven and hell are within us, and all the gods are within us. This is the great realization of the Upanishads of India in the ninth Century B.C. All the gods, all the heavens, all the world, are within us. They are magnified dreams, and dreams are manifestations in image form of the energies of the body in conflict with each other. That is what myth is. Myth is a manifestation in symbolic images, in metaphorical images, of the energies of the organs of the body in conflict with each other. This organ wants this, that organ wants that. The brain is one of the organs.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

“You Are a "PURE" Soul, Don't Let It Darkened By The Shadows Of The Society.”
― Syed Sharukh

“. . . in no instance has a system in regard to religion been ever established, but for the purpose, as well as with the effect of its being made an instrument of intimidation, corruption, and delusion, for the support of depredation and oppression in the hands of governments.”
― Jeremy Bentham, Constitutional Code; For the Use All Nations and All Governments Professing Liberal Opinions Volume 1

“There is nothing that is going to make people hate you more, and love you more, than telling the truth.”
― Stefan Molyneux

“The only part of you that hurts when you're given the truth is the part that lives on lies.”
― Stefan Molyneux

“Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.”
― Plato

“For where there is true love, a man is neither out of measure lifted up by prosperity, nor cast down by mishap; whether you give or take away from him, so long as he keeps his beloved, he has a spring of inward peace. Thus, even though thy outward man grieve, or weep downright, that may well be borne, if only thy inner man remain at peace, perfectly content with the will of God.”
― John Tauler

“The most profound personal growth does not happen while reading a book or meditating. It happens in the throes of conflict, when you are angry, afraid, frustrated. It happens when you are doing the same old thing and you suddenly realize that you have a choice.”
― Vironika Tugaleva

“When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“If understanding followed no rule at all, there would be no good in the understanding nor in the matter understood, and to remain in ignorance would be the greatest good.”
― Ramon Lull

“Be fervent in God, and let nothing grieve you, whatever you encounter.”
― Hadewijch

“Gain or loss, honor or shame,
Consolation at being with God in heaven
Or in the torture of hell:
This Fire makes no distinction.
It burns to death everything it ever touches:
Damnation or blessing no longer matters.”
― Hadewijch

“For this is love's truth; she joins two in one being, makes sweet sour, strangers neighbors, and the lowly noble.”
― Hadewijch, Hadewijch: The Complete Works

“He who knows nothing, loves nothing. He who can do nothing understands nothing. He who understands nothing is worthless. But he who understands also
loves, notices, sees … The more knowledge is inherent in a thing, the greater the love.… Anyone who imagines that all fruits ripen at the same time as the strawberries knows nothing about grapes.”
― Paracelsus

“For God, who is in heaven, is in man. Where else can heaven be, if not in man? As we need it, it must be within us. Therefore it knows our prayer even before we have uttered it, for it is closer to our hearts than to our words.
—Opus paramirum, I:ix”
― Paracelsus, Paracelsus: Essential Readings

“There is an earthly sun, which is the cause of all heat, and all who are able to see may see the sun; and those who are blind and cannot see him may feel his heat. There is an Eternal Sun, which is the source of all wisdom, and those whose spiritual senses have awakened to life will see that sun and be conscious of His existence; but those who have not attained spiritual consciousness may yet feel His power by an inner faculty which is called Intuition.”
― Paracelsus

“The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”
― John Adams

“In times of war, as in life, surround yourself with people of value, virtue and high morals, because it's always better to lose, perish and vanish in glory than to live in shame.”
― Robin Sacredfire