Jacob Needleman Quotes

Quotes about:

• Why has time disappeared in our culture? How is it that after decades of inventions and new technologies devoted to saving time and labor, the result is that there is no time left? We are a time-poor society; we are temporally impoverished. And there is no issue, no aspect of human life, that exceeds this in importance. The destruction of time is literally the destruction of life.

  Jacob Needleman

  Life, Time, Philosophy

  65 Copy quote

• Our modern world-view tragically misperceives and wrongly defines what it is to be human. We are conditioned by our society to believe happiness comes from pleasure, or from getting things or power over people or money or fame or even health and survival. None of these sometimes very good things can bring ultimate meaning to our lives. We are born to be deeply conscious, inwardly free and deeply capable of love. The longing for these things is the definition of what it means to be human.

  Jacob Needleman

  Believe, Mean, People

  Source: www.watkinsmagazine.com

  10 Copy quote

• Our world, so we see and hear on all sides, is drowning in materialism, commercialism, consumerism. But the problem is not really there. What we ordinarily speak of as materialism is a result, not a cause. The root of materialism is a poverty of ideas about the inner and the outer world. Less and less does our contemporary culture have, or even seek, commerce with great ideas, and it is that lack that is weakening the human spirit. This is the essence of materialism. Materialism is a disease of the mind starved for ideas.

  Jacob Needleman

  Our World, Essence, Ideas

  Jacob Needleman (2003). “The American Soul: Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Founders”, p.16, Penguin

  37 Copy quote

• We are born for meaning, not pleasure, unless it is pleasure that is steeped in meaning.

  Jacob Needleman

  Pleasure, Born

  Jacob Needleman (1996). “A Little Book on Love”, Doubleday

  23 Copy quote

• We lose our time because we lose our attention

  Jacob Needleman

  Time, Attention, Our Time

  19 Copy quote

• Faith cannot be shaken, it is the result of being shaken.

  Jacob Needleman

  Results

  Jacob Needleman (2009). “The New Religions”, p.183, Penguin

  21 Copy quote

• The only really interesting questions are the unanswerable ones.

  Jacob Needleman

  Interesting, Really Interesting

  19 Copy quote

• We are human beings, beings whose fundamental food is the experience of truth.

  Jacob Needleman

  Fundamentals, Humans, Human Beings

  19 Copy quote

• What is [the role of money] in the search for meaning? Is our relationship to it one of the chief factors that keeps us in our prison, or could it also be a tool for breaking out, for awakening to a life filled with intensity of purpose?

  Jacob Needleman

  Roles, Tools, Purpose

  21 Copy quote

• The process of inner self-examination brings about a knowledge that is as rigorous and supported by evidence as anything science has to offer. At the same time, this point of view redefines faith as a knowledge that is attained not only by intellectual means, but also through the rigorous development of the emotional side of the human psyche. Such emotional knowledge is unknown to the isolated intellect and has therefore been mistakenly labeled as "irrational."

  Jacob Needleman

  Mean, Emotional, Intellectual

  Source: www.watkinsmagazine.com

  7 Copy quote

• Life is not so much defined by the external situation as it is by the internal one.

  Jacob Needleman

  Life, Situation, Internals

  19 Copy quote

• If one steps out on a starry night and observes one's inner state, one asks if one could hate or be overwhelmed by envy or resentment. ... Is it not true that no man or woman has ever committed a crime while in a state of wonder?

  Jacob Needleman

  Hate, Night, Men

  20 Copy quote

• When thought races ahead of Being, a civilization is racing towards destruction.

  Jacob Needleman

  Civilization, Race, Racing

  Jacob Needleman (2009). “What Is God?”, p.18, Penguin

  17 Copy quote

• Real inquiry is a tremendous moral transforming force. It's not just questioning and looking for a quick answer or explanation, but the process of inquiry-of questioning, of opening-opens something in the human being which has not been touched in our culture. Everybody who is human has in themselves the potential of passionate inquiry after truth, and that's the transforming force.

  Jacob Needleman

  Real, Culture, Inquiry

  13 Copy quote

• For the growing number of people seeking to approach the ideas of Gurdjieff, Toward Awakening by Jean Vaysse offers reliable guidance, as well as evidence of the continuing vitality of this remarkable teaching. It may be counted as among the small handful of books that communicate something of what Gurdjieff brought.

  Jacob Needleman

  Book, Teaching, Ideas

  20 Copy quote

• To search means, first, I need Being, Truth; second, I do not know where to find it; and third, an action takes place that is not based on fantasies of certainty— while at the same time a waiting takes place that is rooted not in wishful thinking but in a deep sense of urgency.

  Jacob Needleman

  Mean, Thinking, Waiting

  20 Copy quote

• God acts in history: that is, God provides ideas, methods, and experiences intended to bring comprehension to man, an understanding heart, a conscious life.

  Jacob Needleman

  Heart, Men, Ideas

  23 Copy quote

• To be totally engaged with all my functions and all my faculties and all my capacities in life to me that would be success.

  Jacob Needleman

  Would Be, Celebration, Capacity

  17 Copy quote

• Frederick Franck is one of a rare and precious breed—an authentic troubadour whose lyricism is pure in word and image. He quietly roams our materialistic world and shows us that even here, even now, there is hope for our soul.

  Jacob Needleman

  Soul, World, Materialistic

  11 Copy quote

• What is most necessary for people and what is given us in great abundance, are experiences, especially experiences of the forces within us. This is our most essential food, our most essential wealth. If we consciously receive all this abundance, the universe will pour into us what is called life in Judaism, spirit in Christianity, light in Islam, power in Taoism.

  Jacob Needleman

  Light, People, Taoism

  14 Copy quote

• As to how I would guide someone who is confused about the idea of God, I would suggest that he or she begins identifying what one might called "philosophical friends," - people with whom one could seriously examine our thought about God through listening to each other, reading important and useful books together and trying to think for oneself while familiarizing oneself with the ideas of some of the world's great thinkers. Cultivate openness without gullibility and skepticism without cynicism.

  Jacob Needleman

  Confused, Book, Philosophical

  Source: www.watkinsmagazine.com

  5 Copy quote

• Man must have results, real results, in his inner and outer life. I do not mean the results which modern people strive after in their attempts at self-development. These are not results, but only rearrangements of psychic material, a process the Buddhists call 'samsara' and which our Holy Bible calls 'dust'.

  Jacob Needleman

  Buddhist, Real, Mean

  19 Copy quote

• The problem of money dogs our steps throughout the whole of our lives, exerting a pressure that, in its way, is as powerful and insistent as any other problem of human existence. And it haunts the spiritual search as well.

  Jacob Needleman

  Spiritual, Dog, Powerful

  13 Copy quote

• If the group is an art form of the future, then convening groups is an artistry we must cultivate to fully harvest the promise of the future.

  Jacob Needleman

  Art, Promise, Groups

  14 Copy quote

• Any serious man or woman in search of spiritual ideas will find a surprising challenge and an authentic source of inspiration and intellectual nourishment in the writings of Paul Brunton.

  Jacob Needleman

  Spiritual, Inspiration, Writing

  10 Copy quote

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