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We live what we know. If we believe the universe and ourselves to be mechanical, we will live mechanically.

Marilyn Ferguson

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Marilyn Ferguson
Age: 70 †
Born: 1938
Born: April 5
Died: 2008
Died: October 19
Author
Writer
Grand Junction
Colorado
Mechanical
Universe
Reality
Live
Believe
Mechanically

More quotes by Marilyn Ferguson

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...As Thomas Kuhn pointed out in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, new scientific theories in any field are regarded with skepticism because scientists become attached to the old perspective earlier in their careers.
Marilyn Ferguson
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When one begins the transformative process, death and birth are imminent: the death of custom as authority, the birth of the self.
Marilyn Ferguson
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Power is a central issue in social and personal transformation. Our sources and uses of power set our boundaries, give form to our relationships, even determine how much we let ourselves liberate and express aspects of the self. More than party registration, more than our purported philosophy or ideology, personal power defines our politics.
Marilyn Ferguson
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Mystical experiences nearly always lead one to a belief that some aspect of consciousness is imperishable. In a Buddhist metaphor the consciousness of the individual is like a flame that burns through the night. It is not the same flame over time, yet neither is it another flame.
Marilyn Ferguson
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The creative process requires chaos before form emerges.
Marilyn Ferguson
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Our biggest failure is our failure to see patterns.
Marilyn Ferguson
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only that which is deeply felt can change us. Rational arguments alone cannot penetrate the layers of fear and conditioning that comprise our crippling belief system.
Marilyn Ferguson
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By definition, revolutions are not linear, one step at a time, event A leading to event B, and so on. Many causes operate on each other at once. Revolutions shift into place suddenly, like the pattern in a kaleidoscope. They do not so much proceed as crystallize.
Marilyn Ferguson
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Fear is a question What are you afraid of, and why? Just as the seed of health is in illness, because illness contains information, your fears are a treasure house of self-knowledge if you explore them.
Marilyn Ferguson
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Spirituality is a kind of virgin wisdom, a knowing that comes prior to experience.
Marilyn Ferguson
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So long as we need to control other people, however benign our motives, we are captive to that need. In giving them freedom, we free ourselves.
Marilyn Ferguson
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The beginning of personal transformation is absurdly easy. We have only to pay attention to the flow of attention itself.
Marilyn Ferguson
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The mind aware of itself is a pilot... vastly freer than a passenger mind.
Marilyn Ferguson
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It's not so much that we're afraid of change or so in love with the old ways, but it's that place in between that we fear . . . . It's like being between trapezes. It's Linus when his blanket is in the dryer. There's nothing to hold on to.
Marilyn Ferguson
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An atmosphere of trust, love, and humor can nourish extraordinary human capacity. One key is authenticity: parents acting as people, not as roles.
Marilyn Ferguson
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The brain's calculations do not require our conscious effort, only our attention and our openness to let the information through. Although the brain absorbs universes of information, little is admitted into normal consciousness.
Marilyn Ferguson
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We cannot leave the trap until we know we are in it.
Marilyn Ferguson
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If we are to find our way across troubled waters, we are better served by the company of those who have built bridges, who have moved beyond despair and inertia.
Marilyn Ferguson
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If we continue to believe as we have always believed, we will continue to act as we have always acted. If we continue to act as we have always acted, we will continue to get what we have always gotten.
Marilyn Ferguson
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Martin Buber said he sensed a rising hunger for relatedness Men would no longer rise in rebellion merely against one oppressor or another but against the distortion of a great yearning, 'the effort towards community.'
Marilyn Ferguson