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Two things can get people to make efforts: if people want to get something, or if they want to get rid of something. Only, in ordinary conditions, without knowledge, people do not know what they can get rid of or what they can gain.

P.D. Ouspensky

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P.D. Ouspensky
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More quotes by P.D. Ouspensky

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If you want to remember yourself, the best thing is not to think about yourself. As long as you think about yourself, you will not remember yourself.
P.D. Ouspensky
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Can one alter one´s chief feature? asked someone else. First it is necessary to know it. If you know it, much will depend on the quality of your knowing. If you know it well, then it is possible to change it.
P.D. Ouspensky
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Most people can accept the truth only in the form of a lie.
P.D. Ouspensky
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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.
P.D. Ouspensky
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Psychology is sometimes called a new science. This is quite wrong. Psychology is, perhaps, the oldest science, and, unfortunately, in its most essential features a forgotten science.
P.D. Ouspensky
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Love is the eternally burning fire in which humanity & all the world are being purified.
P.D. Ouspensky
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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.
P.D. Ouspensky
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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.
P.D. Ouspensky
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Understanding is always the understanding of a smaller problem in relation to a bigger problem.
P.D. Ouspensky
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The greatest barrier to consciousness is the belief that one is already conscious.
P.D. Ouspensky
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One cannot keep all old views and opinions and acquire new ones.
P.D. Ouspensky
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When a man begins to know himself a little he will see in himself many things that are bound to horrify him. So long as a man is not horrified at himself he knows nothing about himself.
P.D. Ouspensky
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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.
P.D. Ouspensky
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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.
P.D. Ouspensky
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A religion contradicting science and a science contradicting religion are equally false.
P.D. Ouspensky
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Art is the communication of ecstasy.
P.D. Ouspensky
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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.
P.D. Ouspensky
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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.
P.D. Ouspensky
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Possibly the most interesting first impression of my life came from the world of dreams.
P.D. Ouspensky
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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.
P.D. Ouspensky