G. I. Gurdjieff
Awakening begins when a man realizes that he is going nowhere and does not know where to go.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Leader
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.Collection: Life
If you meditate and the Devil comes, make the Devil meditate.Collection: People
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.Collection: Spiritual
A man must first of all understand certain things. He has thousands of false ideas and false conceptions, chiefly about himself, and he must get rid of some of them before beginning to acquire anything new. Otherwise the new will be built on a wrong foundation and the result will be worse than before. To speak the truth is the most difficult thing in the world; one must study a great deal and for a long time in order to speak the truth. The wish alone is not enough. To speak the truth one must know what the truth is and what a lie is, and first of all in oneself. And this nobody wants to know.Collection: Lying
You can never awaken using the same system that put you to sleep in the first place.Collection: Sleep
A considerable percentage of the people we meet on the street are people who are empty inside, that is, they are actually already dead. It is fortunate for us that we do not see and do not know it. If we knew what a number of people are actually dead and what a number of these dead people govern our lives, we should go mad with horror.Collection: Death
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.Collection: People
Real love is a cosmic force which goes through us. If we crystallize it, it becomes the greatest power in the world.Collection: Real
Conscious faith is freedom. Emotional faith is slavery. Mechanical faith is foolishness.Collection: Faith
Awakening is possible only for those who seek it and want it, for those who are ready to struggle with themselves and work on themselves for a very long time and very persistently in order to attain it.Collection: Struggle
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.Collection: Men
The evolution of man is the evolution of his consciousness, and 'consciousness' cannot evolve unconsciously. The evolution of man is the evolution of his will, and 'will' cannot evolve involuntarily.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Men
He who has gotten rid of the disease of "tomorrow" has a chance of achieving what he is here for.Collection: Powerful
Begin with the possible; begin with one step.Collection: Steps
Two things in life are infinite; the stupidity of man and the mercy of God.Collection: Men
A miracle is not the breaking of physical laws, but rather represents laws which are incomprehensible to us.Collection: Science
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.Collection: Men
It is only by grounding our awareness in the living sensation of our bodies that the 'I Am,' our real presence, can awaken.Collection: Spiritual
What you need to know is very little, but to know that little takes very very much.Collection: Littles
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.Collection: Mistake
Time began when you were born. It will end when you die.Collection: Ends
To know means to know all. Not to know all means not to know. In order to know all, it is only necessary to know a little. But, in order to know this little, it is first necessary to know pretty much.Collection: Mean
Wish' is the most powerful thing in the world. Higher than God.Collection: Powerful
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.Collection: Moving
As long as our ideas are the same, we will never be apart.Collection: Ideas
Those who have not sown anything during their responsible life will have nothing to reap in the future.Collection: Giving
Common aim is stronger than blood.Collection: Blood
What is possible for individual man is impossible for the masses.Collection: Men
Personality in man is what is "not his own" . . . what come from outside, what he has learned, or reflects, all traces of exterior impressions left in the memory.Collection: Memories
Would a CONSCIOUS human being destroy himself through war, and crime, and quarrels? No, a man simply knows not what he does to himself.Collection: God
Every grown-up man consists wholly of habits, although he is often unaware of it and even denies having any habits at all.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Philosophy
My way is to develop the hidden potentialities of man; a way that is against Nature and against God.Collection: Men
With thorns in the inner world there will always be roses in the outer world, in law-able compensation.Collection: Law
Now everything that you do is written in red or black in Angel Gabriel's book. Not for everyone is this record kept, but only for those who have taken a position of responsibility. There is a Law of Sins, and if you do not fulfil all your obligations, you will pay.Collection: Karma
To know all, it is necessary to know very little; but to know that very little, one must first know pretty much.Collection: Knowledge
Practice love on animals first; they react better and more sensitively.Collection: Animal
The man has the possibilities of getting free gradually from the mechanical laws.Collection: Men
Meat is necessary when there is hard physical work to be done, or in a very cold climate, or when edible plants cannot be found...Animal flesh provides all the substances we need, both for the intensive working of our organism and for maintaining a normal temperature in cold climates.Collection: Animal
Remember you come here having already understood the necessity of struggling with yourself — only with yourself. Therefore thank everyone who gives you the opportunity.Collection: Struggle
Patience is the mother of will.Collection: Patience
There is a cosmic law which says that every satisfaction must be paid for with a dissatisfaction.Collection: Law
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.Collection: Keys
I will tell you one thing that will make you rich for life. There are two struggles: an Inner-world struggle and an Outer-world struggle...you must make an intentional contact between these two worlds; then you can crystallize data for the Third World, the World of the Soul.Collection: Struggle
That which is easy is bad for your inner life.Collection: Easy
In order to understand the interrelation of truth and falsehood in life, a man must understand falsehood in himself, the constant incessant lies he tells himself.Collection: Lying