Enlightenment Quotes - Page 26

• Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Kings, Hate, Light

  "A Gift of Love: Sermons from Strength to Love and Other Preachings".

  95 Copy quote

  Show source

• When we must deal with problems, we instinctively resist trying the way that leads through obscurity and darkness. We wish to hear only of unequivocal results, and completely forget that these results can only be brought about when we have ventured into and emerged again from the darkness. But to penetrate the darkness we must summon all the powers of enlightenment that consciousness can offer.

  Carl Jung

  Darkness, Wish, Trying

  Carl Gustav Jung, Herbert Read, Michael Scott Montague Fordham, Gerhard Adler (1972). “The Collected Works of C.G. Jung: The structure and dynamics of the psyche”

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• Even my desire to become free or enlightened is just another craving for fulfillment or completion in the future. So don’t seek to become free or desire or “achieve” enlightenment. Become present.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Desire, Enlightened, Achieve

  Eckhart Tolle (2010). “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment”, p.31, New World Library

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• An ordinary man seeks freedom through enlightenment. An enlightened man expresses freedom through being ordinary.

  Adyashanti

  Freedom, Men, Ordinary

  23 Copy quote

• The recurrence during the eighteenth century Enlightenment of the aspiration to be the 'Newton of the moral sciences' testifies to the prestige not just of celestial mechanics, but of the 'experimental method' more generally.

  Stefan Collini

  Moral, Newton, Prestige

  C. P. Snow, Stefan Collini (2012). “The Two Cultures”, p.10, Cambridge University Press

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Martin Swinger is one of those rare singer-songwriters who excels at everything: singing, songwriting, guitar-playing, and being so present with his humor, tenderness, and wild mind that his performances are also deep conversations, soul to soul and heart to heart, about the quirks, surprises, and love that brings us most alive. His songs, ranging from the little plastic parts that hold the world together, to what enlightenment comes from Buddha and Betty Boop falling in love, are whimsically and wisely original and enduring.

  Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

  Song, Falling In Love, Heart

  4 Copy quote

• Enlightenment doesnt occur from sitting around visualizing images of light, but from integrating the darker aspects of the Self into the conscious personality.

  Carl Jung

  Light, Self, Personality

  37 Copy quote

• Whoever accepts the higher mission of art and comes nearer and nearer to it through his creative activity, will then go on from art to the Spirit deep within his own self... The philosophic search for enlightenment and the artist's search for perfection of work can meet and unite. Art can be a path to spiritual enlightenment but not to complete and lasting enlightenment. It can be born out of, and can give birth itself to, only Glimpses. For art is a search for beauty, which by itself is not enough. Beauty must be supported by virtue and both require wisdom to guide them.

  Paul Brunton

  Spiritual, Art, Self

  16 Copy quote

• The trouble with Westerners is that they want to witness their own enlightenment.

  Chogyam Trungpa

  Want, Trouble, Observation

  32 Copy quote

• Our Christian faith - and correlatively, our account of apologetics - is tainted by modernism when we fail to appreciate the effects of sin on reason. When this is ignored, we adopt an Enlightenment optimism about the role of a supposedly neutral reason in the recognition of truth.

  James K. A. Smith

  Christian, Optimism, Appreciate

  James K. A. Smith (2006). “Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? (The Church and Postmodern Culture): Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church”, p.28, Baker Academic

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• When we want a cup of tea our main wish is to drink tea, but to fulfill this wish we naturally develop the secondary wish to find a cup. In a similar way, the main wish of those who have great compassion is to protect all living beings from their suffering, but to fulfill this wish they know they must first attain Buddhahood themselves and so they naturally develop the secondary wish to attain enlightenment.

  Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

  Compassion, Tea, Suffering

  5 Copy quote

• As soon as the mouth is opened, evils spring forth. People either neglect the root and speak of the branches, or neglect the reality of the 'illusory' world and speak only of Enlightenment. Or else they chatter of cosmic activities leading to transformations, while neglecting the Substance from which they spring--indeed, there is NEVER any profit in discussion.

  Huangbo Xiyun

  Spring, Reality, Roots

  44 Copy quote

• We might think we can find a buddha or enlightenment somewhere beyond this mind; we might think we can find serenity, clarity, and meaning beyond this mind, but such place does not exist. Everything that appears is this mind, Bodhidharma says.

  Geoffrey Shugen Arnold

  Thinking, Serenity, Mind

  6 Copy quote

• Further, if Spirit has any meaning at all, then it must be eternal, or without beginning or end. If Spirit had a beginning in time, then it would be strictly temporal, it would not be timeless and eternal. And this means, as regards your own awareness, that you cannot become enlightened. You cannot attain enlightenment. If you could attain enlightenment, then that state would have a beginning in time, and so it would not be true enlightenment.

  Ken Wilber

  Mean, Would Be, Spirit

  10 Copy quote

• In short, the enlightenment privatized marriage, taking it out of the public sphere, and redefined its purpose as individual gratification, not any 'broader good' such as reflecting God's nature, producing character, or raising children. Slowly but surely, this newer understanding of the meaning of marriage has displaced the older ones in Western culture.

  Timothy Keller

  Christian, Children, Character

  Timothy Keller (2011). “The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God”, p.20, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• [Men] prefer the foolish belief and the passions of the earth [to the enlightenment of their souls]. They believe the absurd and shrink from the truth.No, they do not. They are afraid, that is all. And they must remain on earth until they come to the way of leaving it.And how do they leave? How is the ascent made? Must one learn virtue?Here she laughs. You have read too much, and learned too little. Virtue is a road, not a destination. Man cannot be virtuous. Understanding is the goal. When that is achieved, the soul can take wing.

  Iain Pears

  Believe, Passion, Men

  4 Copy quote

• The genius of Man in our time has gone into jet-propulsion, atom-splitting, penicillin-curing, etc. There is none left over for works of imagination; of spiritual insight or mystical enlightenment.

  Malcolm Muggeridge

  Spiritual, Science, Men

  "The Most of Malcolm Muggeridge".

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our world is in profound danger. Mankind must establish a set of positive values with which to secure its own survival. This quest for enlightenment must begin now.
  It is essential that all men and women become aware of what they are, why they are here on Earth and what they must do to preserve civilization before it is too late.

  Richard Matheson

  Men, Our World, Civilization

  "The Path". Book by Richard Matheson, 1999.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Disease an never be conquered, can never be quelled by emotion's willful screaming or faith's symbolic prayer. It can only be conquered by the energy of humanity and the cunning in the mind of man. In the patience of a Curie, in the enlightenment of a Faraday, a Rutherford, a Pasteur, a Nightingale, and all other apostles of light and cleanliness, rather than of a woebegone godliness, we shall find final deliverance from plague, pestilence, and famine.

  Sean O'Casey

  Prayer, Men, Light

  24 Copy quote

• ZEN is MEDITATION. ARCHY is Social Order. ZENARCHY is the Social Order which springs from Meditation. As a doctrine, it holds Universal Enlightenment a prerequisite to abolition of the State, after which a State will inevitably vanish. Or - that failing - nobody will give a damn.

  Kerry Thornley

  Spring, Government, Order

  4 Copy quote

• Attachment is the main thing that is blocking your path towards enlightenment.

  Garchen Rinpoche

  Block, Attachment, Path

  15 Copy quote

• A fully blossomed human potential is enlightenment. It is becoming a child again, and coming back to your original nature.

  Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

  Children, Becoming, Coming Back

  9 Copy quote

• We do not slight the idea of enlightenment, but the most important thing is this moment, not some day in the future. We have to make our effort in this moment. This is the most important thing for our practice.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Practice, Ideas, Effort

  Shunryu Suzuki (2018). “Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice”, p.58, House of Majied Publications via PublishDrive

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• In dealing with the arrogant asserter of doubt, it is not the right method to tell him to stop doubting. It is rather the right method to tell him to go on doubting, to doubt a little more, to doubt every day newer and wilder things in the universe, until at last, by some strange enlightenment, he may begin to doubt himself.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Doubt, Arrogant, Goes On

  5 Copy quote

• Enlightenment is not a finite state. It's not something that you just do and it's done. It goes on forever.

  Frederick Lenz

  Forever, Done, Goes On

  4 Copy quote