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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.

P.D. Ouspensky

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P.D. Ouspensky
People
Forgotten
Monkey
Consider
Descendants
Completely
Inheritance
Especially
Ancestors
Since
Monkeys
Rich
Ancestor
Left
Began
Time
Enormous
Eminent

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There is no possibility of remembering what has been found and understood, and later repeating it to oneself. It disappears as a dream disappears. Perhaps it is all nothing but a dream.
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People live in sleep, do everything in sleep, and do not know they are asleep.
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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.
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There is no tyranny more ferocious than the tyranny of morality. Everything is sacrificed to it.
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Man has no permanent and unchangeable I. Every thought, every mood, every desire, every sensation says I. And in each case it seems to be taken for granted that this I belongs to the Whole, to the whole man, and that a thought, a desire, or an aversion is expressed by this Whole.
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It is by overcoming obstacles that man develops those qualities he needs.
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The problem of Eternity, of which the face of the Sphinx speaks, takes us into the realm of the impossible. Even the problem of Time is simple in comparison with the problem of Eternity.
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Ideas by themselves cannot produce change of being your effort must go in the right direction, and one must correspond to the other.
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Desire is when you do what you want, will is when you can do what you do not want.
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Philosophy is based on speculation, on logic, on thought, on the synthesis of what we know and on the analysis of what we do not know. Philosophy must include within its confines the whole content of science, religion and art.
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Understanding is always the understanding of a smaller problem in relation to a bigger problem.
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Art is the communication of ecstasy.
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There is something in us that keeps us where we find ourselves. I think this is the most awful thing of all.
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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.
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A religion contradicting science and a science contradicting religion are equally false.
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A symbol may serve to transfer our intuitions and to suggest new ones only so long as its meaning is not defined.
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I've found that the chief difficulty for most people was to realize that they had really heard new things: that is things that they had never heard before. They kept translating what they heard into their habitual language. They had ceased to hope and believe there might be anything new.
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