Attachment Quotes - Page 2

• We long for an affection altogether ignorant of our faults. Heaven has accorded this to us in the uncritical canine attachment.

  George Eliot

  Dog, Live Life, Animal

  "Puppy Love: new BBC4 comedy explores the UK's canine compulsion" by Joanna Scanlan & Vicki Pepperdine, www.theguardian.com. November 7, 2014.

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is a fuzzy but real distinction that can and I believe should be made, between patriotism, which is attachment to a way of life, and nationalism, which is the insistence that your way of life deserves to rule over other ways of life.

  Todd Gitlin

  Real, Believe, Patriotism

  "How to be radical?". The OpenDemocracy Interview, www.opendemocracy.net. April 5, 2011.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought, not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  Freedom, Hate, Libertarian

  United States v. Schwimmer (dissenting opinion) (1929)

  89 Copy quote

  Show source

• I had an attachment disorder.

  Dave Pelzer

  Disorder

  7 Copy quote

• Relying on another is an expression of attachment, not love, a manifestation of insecurity and suffering, not understanding the true nature of our lives.

  Brenda Shoshanna

  Love, Nature, Expression

  Brenda Shoshanna (2004). “Zen and the Art of Falling in Love”, p.221, Simon and Schuster

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Think about any attachments that are depleting your emotional reserves. Consider letting them go.

  Oprah Winfrey

  Letting Go, Heartbroken, Wisdom

  13 Copy quote

• There is pleasure when a sore is scratched, But to be without sores is more pleasurable still. Just so, there are pleasures in worldly desires, But to be without desires is more pleasurable still.

  Akkineni Nagarjuna

  Buddhist, Meditation, Desire

  12 Copy quote

• When you massage someone, the levels of oxytocin go up in the brain, and oxytocin is one of the chemicals that drives attachment.

  Helen Fisher

  Oxytocin, Brain, Levels

  13 Copy quote

• Our notions with respect to the importance of life, and our attachment to it, depend on a principle which has very little to do with its happiness or its misery. The love of life is, in general, the effect not of our enjoyments, but of our passions.

  William Hazlitt

  Passion, Love Life, Principles

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.170, Delphi Classics

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Just seeing the fact that this is an attachment, that attachment is a bondage - a beautiful word for bondage - that attachment is not love... just seeing the ugliness of attachment - it drops; then arises love. The same energy that was becoming attachment, released from attachment becomes a totally different energy; it becomes love.

  Rajneesh

  Beautiful, Facts, Becoming

  9 Copy quote

• Remember: no attachment should grow, no clinging should grow. They are all against your independence, your freedom, your individuality.

  Rajneesh

  Independence, Individuality, Remember

  8 Copy quote

• To work without attachment is to work without the expectation of reward.

  Ramakrishna

  Expectations, Rewards

  111 Copy quote

• Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so slightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible.

  Virginia Woolf

  Life, Writing, History

  13 Copy quote

• He who is overly attached to his family members experiences fear and sorrow, for the root of all grief is attachment. Thus one should discard attachment to be happy.

  Chanakya

  Family, Education, Grief

  56 Copy quote

• A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man that actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of friends.

  George Washington

  True Friend, 4th Of July, Patriotic

  George Washington, Stephen Lucas (1999). “The Quotable George Washington: The Wisdom of an American Patriot”, p.39, Rowman & Littlefield

  86 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is something akin to freedom in having a lover who has no control over you, except that which he gains by kindness and attachment.

  Harriet Ann Jacobs

  Kindness, Slave Girl, Over You

  Harriet Ann Jacobs, Lydia Maria Child (2011). “The Deeper Wrong: Or, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”, p.85, Cambridge University Press

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• To remain attached to the temporal, to the changing is to remain within the world of misery because the temporal will be taken away. You have invested so much in it but one day everything is taken away. Then it is natural to feel miserable. Misery is rooted in attachment to the body and bliss is rooted in non-attachment to the body; hence all the great masters have been teaching methods and means of non-attachment, of getting disidentified with the body, with the mind, with everything surrounds you, and of just remaining a pure witness. That's what we are: pure witnessing, pure awareness.

  Rajneesh

  Teaching, Taken, Mean

  15 Copy quote

• Everything comes out of nothingness and goes back into nothingness. Hence there is no need for attachment, because attachment will bring misery. Soon it will be gone. The flower that has blossomed in the morning, by the evening will be gone. Don't get attached; otherwise in the evening there will be misery. Then there will be tears, then you will miss the flower. Enjoy while it is. But remember, it has come out of nothing, and it will go back to nothing. And the same is true about everything, even about people.

  Rajneesh

  Morning, Flower, People

  22 Copy quote

• When you are not the doer how can the attachment happen? You do a small thing and you become attached. You say, "I have done this." You would like everybody to know that you have done this and you have done that. This ego is the barrier for the supreme understanding. Drop the doer and let things happen. That's what Tilopa means by being loose and natural.

  Rajneesh

  Mean, Ego, Understanding

  7 Copy quote

• Attachment is not love. Where there is attachment there is exploitation.

  Rajneesh

  Exploitation

  Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (1994). “Pointing the Way”, Motilal Banarsidass Publ.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• The path of self-purification is hard and steep. One has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. I know that I have not in me as yet that triple purity in spite of constant ceaseless striving for it. That is why the world's praise fails to move me, indeed it very often stings me. To conquer the subtle passions seems to me to be harder far than the physical conquest of the world by the force of arms.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Love, Moving, Passion

  Mahatma Gandhi (2005). “All Men Are Brothers”, p.56, A&C Black

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you want to know something, go elsewhere. If you want to un-know everything, then sit and listen.

  Adyashanti

  Want, Consciousness, Elsewhere

  8 Copy quote

• Don't be attached to the things of the world, and don't be attached to the things of the other world, because things are things. It makes no difference whether they are of this world or the other world - attachment is the problem.

  Rajneesh

  Other Worlds, Differences, Problem

  7 Copy quote

• A witnessing consciousness lives in life but with tremendous non-attachment, with great non-possessiveness; it possesses nothing. It lives totally, it lives passionately, but still knowing that I don't possess anything.

  Rajneesh

  Knowing, Consciousness, Possessiveness

  9 Copy quote

• If attachment is the conditioning factor, then non-attachment will become the unconditioning factor. If expectation leads you in misery, then non-expectation will lead you into non-misery. If anger creates a hell within you, then compassion will create a heaven. So whatsoever the process of misery, the reverse will be the process of happiness. Unconditioning means you have to understand the whole knotted phenomenon of human consciousness as it is.

  Rajneesh

  Mean, Compassion, Expectations

  7 Copy quote