G. I. Gurdjieff Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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

  153 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

  175 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

  170 Copy quote

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

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  People, Devil, People Skills

  130 Copy quote

• 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

  269 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

  214 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

  49 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

  53 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

  161 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

  50 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

  150 Copy quote

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

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Faith, Emotional, Slavery

  86 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

  94 Copy quote

• We must strive for freedom if we strive for self-knowledge. The task of self-knowledge and of further self-development is of such importance and seriousness, it demands such intensity of effort, that to attempt it any old way and amongst other things is impossible. The person who undertakes this task must put it first in his life, which is not so long that he can afford to squander it on trifles.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Self, Long, Effort

  19 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

  140 Copy quote

• Begin with the possible; begin with one step.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Steps

  35 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

  117 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

  64 Copy quote

• It is only by grounding our awareness in the living sensation of our bodies that the 'I Am,' our real presence, can awaken.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Spiritual, Real, Body

  114 Copy quote

• Man has no individual 'I'. But there are, instead, hundreds and thousands of separate small 'I's, very often entirely unknown to one another, never coming into contact, or, on the contrary, hostile to each other, mutually exclusive and incompatible. Each minute, each moment, man is saying or thinking, 'I'. And each time his 'I' is different. Just now it was a thought, now it is a desire, now a sensation, now another thought, and so on, endlessly. Man is a plurality. Man's name is legion.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Men, Thinking, Names

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

  42 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

  62 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

  79 Copy quote

• Sincerity is the key which will open the door through which you will see your separate parts, and you will see something quite new. You must go on trying to be sincere. Each day you put on a mask, and you must take it off little by little.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Keys, Doors, Trying

  "All and Everything: Views from the Real World". Book by George Gurdjieff, 1973.

  16 Copy quote

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

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Easy, Inner Life

  37 Copy quote

• Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Spiritual, Knowledge, Acceptance

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

  74 Copy quote

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