G. I. Gurdjieff Quotes

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• Try to understand what I am saying: everything is dependent on everything else, everything is connected, nothing is separate. Therefore everything is going in the only way it can go. If people were different everything would be different. They are what they are, so everything is as it is.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  People, Trying, Different

  254 Copy quote

• A considerable percentage of the people we meet on the street are people who are empty inside, that is, they are actually already dead. It is fortunate for us that we do not see and do not know it. If we knew what a number of people are actually dead and what a number of these dead people govern our lives, we should go mad with horror.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Death, Prayer, Numbers

  158 Copy quote

• Awakening begins when a man realizes that he is going nowhere and does not know where to go.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Men, Doe, Awakening

  183 Copy quote

• A man must first of all understand certain things. He has thousands of false ideas and false conceptions, chiefly about himself, and he must get rid of some of them before beginning to acquire anything new. Otherwise the new will be built on a wrong foundation and the result will be worse than before. To speak the truth is the most difficult thing in the world; one must study a great deal and for a long time in order to speak the truth. The wish alone is not enough. To speak the truth one must know what the truth is and what a lie is, and first of all in oneself. And this nobody wants to know.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Lying, Men, Order

  134 Copy quote

• The crowd neither wants nor seeks knowledge, and the leaders of the crowd, in their own interests, try to strengthen its fear and dislike of everything new and unknown. The slavery in which mankind lives is based upon this fear.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Leader, Trying, Slavery

  150 Copy quote

• Self-observation brings man to the realization of the necessity of self-change. And in observing himself a man notices that self-observation itself brings about certain changes in his inner processes. He begins to understand that self-observation is an instrument of self-change, a means of awakening.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Spiritual, Mean, Men

  145 Copy quote

• If you meditate and the Devil comes, make the Devil meditate.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  People, Devil, People Skills

  102 Copy quote

• Awakening is possible only for those who seek it and want it, for those who are ready to struggle with themselves and work on themselves for a very long time and very persistently in order to attain it.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Struggle, Order, Long

  78 Copy quote

• If you help others, you will be helped, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps in one hundred years, but you will be helped. Nature must pay off the debt. It is a mathematical law and all life is mathematics.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Life, Kindness, Helping Others

  33 Copy quote

• The evolution of man is the evolution of his consciousness, and 'consciousness' cannot evolve unconsciously. The evolution of man is the evolution of his will, and 'will' cannot evolve involuntarily.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Men, Insightful, Evolution Of Man

  139 Copy quote

• You can never awaken using the same system that put you to sleep in the first place.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Sleep, Growth, Firsts

  30 Copy quote

• That which is easy is bad for your inner life.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Easy, Inner Life

  17 Copy quote

• Conscious faith is freedom. Emotional faith is slavery. Mechanical faith is foolishness.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Faith, Emotional, Slavery

  71 Copy quote

• If a man could understand all the horror of the lives of ordinary people who are turning around in a circle of insignificant interests and insignificant aims, if he could understand what they are losing, he would understand that there can only be one thing that is serious for him - to escape from the general law, to be free. What can be serious for a man in prison who is condemned to death? Only one thing: How to save himself, how to escape: nothing else is serious.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Men, Law, Circles

  130 Copy quote

• Real love is a cosmic force which goes through us. If we crystallize it, it becomes the greatest power in the world.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Real, Love Is, World

  36 Copy quote

• Two things in life are infinite; the stupidity of man and the mercy of God.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Men, Mercy Of God, Things In Life

  94 Copy quote

• One may say that evil does not exist for subjective man at all, that there exist only different conceptions of good. Nobody ever does anything deliberately in the interests of evil, for the sake of evil. Everybody acts in the interests of good, as he understands it. But everybody understands it in a different way. Consequently men drown, slay, and kill one another in the interests of good.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Men, Evil, Doe

  120 Copy quote

• It is the same with everything else, with food, with pleasures, with sleep; with everything there is a limit to what is necessary. After this "sin" begins. This is something that must be grasped, a "sin" is something which is not necessary.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Sin

  "In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching". Book by Pyotr Ouspensky, 1949.

  8 Copy quote

• The only type of sexual relations possible are those with someone who is as advanced and capable as oneself.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Type, Relation, Oneself

  26 Copy quote

• Ancient art has a specific inner content. At one time, art possessed the same purpose that books do in our day, namely: to preserve and transmit knowledge. In olden days, people did not write books, they incorporated their knowledge into works of art. We would find a great many ideas in the works of ancient art passed down to us, if only we knew how to read them.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Art, Book, Writing

  55 Copy quote

• He who has gotten rid of the disease of "tomorrow" has a chance of achieving what he is here for.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Powerful, Disease, Chance

  70 Copy quote

• There is a cosmic law which says that every satisfaction must be paid for with a dissatisfaction.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Law, Satisfaction, Pleasure

  37 Copy quote

• In order to understand the interrelation of truth and falsehood in life, a man must understand falsehood in himself, the constant incessant lies he tells himself.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Lying, Men, Order

  57 Copy quote

• Laughter relieves us of superfluous energy, which, if it remained unused, might become negative, that is, poison. Laughter is the antidote.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Happiness, Laughter, Joy

  23 Copy quote

• What you need to know is very little, but to know that little takes very very much.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Littles, Needs, Knows

  46 Copy quote

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