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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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P.D. Ouspensky
Meaning
Transfer
Ones
Transfers
May
Suggest
Long
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Symbols
Intuition
Defined
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Intuitions

More quotes by 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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There is no tyranny more ferocious than the tyranny of morality. Everything is sacrificed to it.
P.D. Ouspensky
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Desire is when you do what you want, will is when you can do what you do not want.
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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One cannot keep all old views and opinions and acquire new ones.
P.D. Ouspensky
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Art is the communication of ecstasy.
P.D. Ouspensky
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It is by overcoming obstacles that man develops those qualities he needs.
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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If a man gives way to all his desires, or panders to them, there will be no inner struggle in him, no 'friction,' no fire. But if, for the sake of attaining a definite aim, he struggles with desires that hinder him, he will then create a fire which will gradually transform his inner world into a single whole.
P.D. Ouspensky
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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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People live in sleep, do everything in sleep, and do not know they are asleep.
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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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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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.
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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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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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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Ideas by themselves cannot produce change of being your effort must go in the right direction, and one must correspond to the other.
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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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