Enlightenment Quotes - Page 4

• The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.

  H. L. Mencken

  Education, Learning, Liberty

  The American Mercury Magazine, April 24, 1924.

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• Whatever is happening is the path to enlightenment.

  Pema Chodron

  Path To Enlightenment, Path, Happenings

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• The basic nature of all conscious beings is 'self-existing wakefulness'.
  Self-existing meaning spontaneous or without effort and wakefulness meaning natural awareness.
  To ignore our basic nature, is to wander in fear and confusion,
  to directly realise our essential nature is to be Enlightened.

  Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche

  Spiritual, Nature, Buddhist

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• You can't make a date with enlightenment.

  Shunryu Suzuki

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• Before anything else, we need a new age of Enlightenment. Our present political systems must relinquish their claims on truth, justice and freedom and have to replace them with the search for truth, justice, freedom and reason.

  Friedrich Durrenmatt

  Birthday, Justice, Political

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• Everyone has a spirit that can be refined, a body that can be trained in some manner, a suitable path to follow. You are here to realize your inner divinity and manifest your innate enlightenment.

  Morihei Ueshiba

  Sports, Body, Divinity

  "Inspire! What Great Leaders Do" by Lance Secretan, (p. 45), 2004.

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• By any reasonable measure of achievement, the faith of the Enlightenment thinkers in science was justified.

  E. O. Wilson

  Achievement, Justified, Thinker

  E. O. Wilson (2014). “Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge”, p.72, Vintage

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• Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment.

  Dogen

  War, Thinking, Enlightened

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• There is no beginning to practice nor end to enlightenment; There is no beginning to enlightenment nor end to practice.

  Dogen

  Practice, Ends

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• Always keep your mind as bright and clear as the vast sky, the great ocean, and the highest peak, empty of all thoughts. Always keep your body filled with light and heat. Fill yourself with the power of wisdom and enlightenment.

  Morihei Ueshiba

  Sports, Ocean, Light

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• Unity is divinity, purity is enlightenment.

  Sathya Sai Baba

  Unity, Divinity, Purity

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• The moment you have faith, there is the experience. The moment you have trust, there is realization, there is enlightenment. Then this world no longer exists as the world. The world exists as the Self. It exists as God. And then, with our physical eyes, we can see the light of God everywhere and in everything.

  Gurumayi Chidvilasananda

  God, Eye, Light

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• Create the way by your walking; you will not find a ready-made path

  Rajneesh

  Way, Path, Made

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• All the buddhas of all the ages have been telling you a very simple fact: Be — don´t try to become. Within these two words, be and becoming, your whole life is contained. Being is enlightenment, becoming is ignorance." Osho

  Rajneesh

  Ignorance, Simple, Two

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• If you are liberated then you can be in the crowd and there is no crowd. You can be surrounded by the world and their is no world. You have shattered the prism of illusion.

  Frederick Lenz

  World, Crowds, Illusion

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• Good humor and enthusiasm should be the sunshine ahead that will keep that shadow behind.

  Charles W. Field

  Sunshine, Shadow, Enthusiasm

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• So the most difficult thing is always to keep your beginner's mind. There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen. Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind. You should not say, "I know what Zen is," or "I have attained enlightenment." This is also the real secret of the arts: always be a beginner. Be very very careful about this point. If you start to practice zazen, you will begin to appreciate your beginner's mind. It is the secret of Zen practice.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Art, Real, Practice

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• To stay with that shakiness-to stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge-that is the path of true awakening. Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic-this is the spiritual path.

  Pema Chodron

  Broken Heart, Spiritual, Buddhist

  Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.14, Shambhala Publications

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• The connections I draw between human nature and political systems in my new book, for example, were prefigured in the debates during the Enlightenment and during the framing of the American Constitution.

  Steven Pinker

  Book, Political, Example

  "A biological understanding of human nature". Edge Interview, www.edge.org. September 8, 2002.

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• If we remove ourselves from the world, we are pretending that we can follow our own individual enlightenment and let the rest of the world go to hell, so to speak.

  Satish Kumar

  World, Speak, Hell

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• You British plundered half the world for your own profit. Let's not pass it off as the Age of Enlightenment.

  Paddy Chayefsky

  Age, Half, World

  Paddy Chayefsky (1995). “The screenplays”

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• Modernity, the child of the Enlightenment, failed when it became apparent that the good society cannot be achieved by unaided reason.

  Robert Bork

  Children, Reason, Modernity

  Robert H. Bork (2010). “Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline”, p.4, Harper Collins

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• The sublimated idealism of the Enlightenment, the spirit of the League of Nations and of the United Nations Charter have not proved strong enough to control the aggressive dynamism of nationalism.

  Christopher Dawson

  Strong, League, Literature

  Christopher Dawson (2010). “The Crisis of Western Education (The Works of Christopher Dawson)”, p.94, CUA Press

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• Before enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. After enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water.

  Matsuo Basho

  Water, Woods, Chopping

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• Our society is the product of several great religious and philosophical traditions. The ideas of the Greeks and Romans, Christianity, Judaism, humanism and the Enlightenment have made us who we are.

  Jan Peter Balkenende

  Religious, Philosophical, Ideas

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