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Most Popular G I Gurdjieff Quotes


G.I. Gurdjieff Quotes with Deep Meaning


“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

“Conscious faith is freedom.
Emotional faith is slavery.
Mechanical faith is foolishness.”
G.I. Gurdjieff

“Practice love on animals first;
they react better and more sensitively.”
G.I. Gurdjieff

“It is very difficult also to sacrifice one's suffering.
A man will renounce any pleasures you like
but he will not give up his suffering.”
G.I. Gurdjieff

“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

“I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself.”
G.I. Gurdjieff,

“There is a cosmic law which says that
every satisfaction must be paid for with a dissatisfaction.”
G.I. Gurdjieff

“To know means to know all.
Not to know all means not to know.
In order to know all,
it is only necessary to know a little.
But, in order to know this little,
it is first necessary to know pretty much.”
G.I. Gurdjieff

“Two things in life are infinite;
the stupidity of man and the mercy of God.”
G.I. Gurdjieff

“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

“I will tell you one thing that will make you rich for life.
There are two struggles:
an Inner-world struggle and an Outer-world struggle...
you must make an intentional contact between these two worlds;
then you can crystallize data for the Third World,
the World of the Soul.”
G.I. Gurdjieff

“Common aim is stronger than blood.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff

“If you want to lose your faith, make friends

with a priest.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff

“The greatest untold story is the evolution of

God.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff

“The only type of sexual relations possible are

those with someone who is as advanced and capable

as oneself.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff

“Remember you come here having already understood

the necessity of struggling with yourself — only

with yourself. Therefore thank everyone who gives

you the opportunity.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff

“It is the greatest mistake to think that man is

always one and the same. A man is never the same

for long. He is continually changing. He seldom

remains the same even for half an hour.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
19 likes Like
“Better to die than live in sleep.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
18 likes Like

? G.I. Gurdjieff
tags: love 17 likes Like
“As long as our ideas are the same, we will never

be apart.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff

“What is possible for individual man is

impossible for the masses.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff

“Knowledge can be acquired by a suitable and

complete study, no matter what the starting point

is. Only one must know how to 'learn.' What is

nearest to us is man; and you are the nearest of

all men to yourself. Begin with the study of

yourself; remember the saying 'Know thyself.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff, Views from the Real World:

Early Talks Moscow Essentuki Tiflis Berlin London

Paris NY Chicago as Recollecte

“Only super-efforts count.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff

“Man must use what he has, not hope for what is

not.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff

“LIBERATION LEADS TO LIBERATION. These are the

first words of truth — not truth in quotation

marks but truth in the real meaning of the word;

truth which is not merely theoretical, not simply

a word, but truth that can be realized in

practice. The meaning behind these words may be

explained as follows: By liberation is meant the

liberation which is the aim of all schools, all

religions, at all times. This liberation can

indeed be very great. All men desire it and

strive after it. But it cannot be attained

without the first liberation, a lesser

liberation. The great liberation is liberation

from influences outside us. The lesser liberation

is liberation from influences within us.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff

“In order to awaken, first of all one must

realize that one is in a state of sleep. And in

order to realize that one is indeed in a state of

sleep, one must recognize and fully understand

the nature of the forces which operate to keep

one in the state of sleep, or hypnosis. It is

absurd to think that this can be done by seeking

information from the very source which induces

the hypnosis.
....One thing alone is certain, that man's

slavery grows and increases. Man is becoming a

willing slave. He no longer needs chains. He

begins to grow fond of his slavery, to be proud

of it. And this is the most terrible thing that

can happen to a man.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff

“Life is real only then, when "I am".”
? G.I. Gurdjieff

“Meat is necessary when there is hard physical

work to be done, or in a very cold climate, or

when edible plants cannot be found...Animal flesh

provides all the substances we need, both for the

intensive working of our organism and for

maintaining a normal temperature in cold

climates.”

tags: meat, vegetarian, vegetarianism,

vegetarians 11 likes Like
“From looking at your neighbor and realizing his

true significance, and that he will die, pity and

compassion will arise in you for him and finally

you will love him.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff

“an honest being who does not behave absurdly has

no
chance at all of becoming famous, or even of

being noticed, however kind
and sensible he may be.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff,

“Now everything that you do is written in red or

black in Angel Gabriel's book. Not for everyone

is this record kept, but only for those who have

taken a position of responsibility. There is a

Law of Sins, and if you do not fulfil all your

obligations, you will pay.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff

“With thorns in the inner world there will always

be roses in the outer world, in law-able

compensation.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff

“Let us take some event in the life of humanity.

For instance, war. There is a war going on at the

present moment. What does it signify? It

signifies that several millions of sleeping

people are trying to destroy several millions of

other sleeping people. They would not do this, of

course, if they were to wake up. Everything that

takes place is owing to this sleep.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff

“Wish' is the most powerful thing in the world.

Higher than God.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
tags: desire, prayer, wish 8 likes Like
“All who have come to me must have enema each

day.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff

“man lies to himself a lot.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff

“In my opinion, what will be troublesome for you

in all this is chiefly that in childhood there

was implanted in you—and has now become perfectly

harmonized with your general psyche—an

excellently working automatism for perceiving all

kinds of new impressions, thanks to which

“blessing” you have now, during your responsible

life, no need to make any individual effort

whatsoever.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff, Beelzebub's Tales to His

Grandson

“It is necessary to observe yourself differently

than you do in ordinary life. It is necessary to

have a different attitude, not the attitude you

had till now. You know where your habitual

attitudes have led you till now. There is no

sense in going on as before.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff, Views From the Real World

“entire life, from the moment I began to

distinguish a boy from a girl, I have always done

everything, absolutely everything, not as it is

done by other, like myself, biped destroyers of

Nature’s good.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff, Beelzebub's Tales to His

Grandson

“Se io è presente in me non contano più né Dio né

diavolo.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff

“Modern civilization is based on violence and

slavery and fine words.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff

“You are in prison. If you wish to get out of

prison, the first thing you must do is realize

that you are in prison. If you think you are

free, you can't escape.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff

 society, wake-up-call 1 likes Like
“it was customary in long-past centuries on Earth

for every man bold enough to aspire to the right

to be considered by others and to consider

himself a “conscious thinker” to be instructed,

while still in the early years of his responsible

existence, that man has two kinds of mentation

one kind, mentation by thought, expressed by

words always possessing a relative meaning, and

another kind, proper to all animals as well as to

man, which I would call “mentation by form.” The

second kind of mentation, that is, “mentation by

form”—through which, by the way, the exact

meaning of all writing should be perceived and

then assimilated after conscious confrontation

with information previously acquired—is

determined in people by the conditions of

geographical locality, climate, time, and in

general the whole environment in which they have

arisen and in which their existence has flowed up

to adulthood. Thus, in the brains of people of

different races living in different geographical

localities under different conditions, there

arise in regard to one and the same thing or idea

quite different independent forms, which during

the flow of associations evoke in their being a

definite sensation giving rise to a definite

picturing, and this picturing is expressed by

some word or other that serves only for its outer

subjective expression. That is why each word for

the same thing or idea almost always acquires for

people of different geographical localities and

races a quite specific and entirely different so

to say “inner content.” In other words, if in the

“presence” of a man who has arisen and grown up

in a given locality a certain “form” has been

fixed as a result of specific local influences

and impressions, this “form” evokes in him by

association the sensation of a definite “inner

content,” and consequently a definite picturing

or concept, for the expression of which he uses

some word that has become habitual and, as I

said, subjective to him, but the hearer of that

word—in whose being, owing to the different

conditions of his arising and growth, a form with

a different “inner content” has been fixed for

the given word—will always perceive and

infallibly understand that word in quite another

sense.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff,

“Contemporary man, owing to certain, almost

imperceptible conditions of ordinary life which

are firmly rooted in modern civilisation and

which seem to have become, so to speak, "

inevitable " in daily life, has gradually

deviated from the natural type he ought to have

represented on account of the sum-total of the

influences of place and environment in which he

was born and reared and which, under normal

conditions, without any artificial impediments,

would have indicated by their very nature for

each individual the lawful path of his

development in that final normal type which he

ought to have become even in his preparatory age.

  Today, civilisation, with its unlimited scope

in extending its influence, has wrenched man from

the normal conditions in which he should be

living.   It is, of course, true that modern

civilisation has opened up for man new and vaster

horizons in different technical, mechanical and

many other so-called " sciences ", thereby

enlarging his world perception, but civilisation

has, instead of a balanced rising to a higher

degree of development, developed only certain

sides of his general being to the detriment of

others, while, because of the absence of an

harmonious education, certain faculties inherent

in man have even been completely destroyed,

depriving him in this way of the natural

privileges of his type. In other words, by not

educating the growing generation harmoniously,

this civilisation, which should have been,

according to common sense, in all respects like a

good mother to man, has withheld from him what

she should have given him ; and, it appears, that

she has even taken from him the possibility of

the progressive and balanced development of a new

type, which development would have inevitably

taken place if only in the course of time and

according to the law of general human progress.

From this follows the indubitable fact, which can

be clearly established, that, instead of an

accomplished individual type, which historical

data would show man to have been some centuries

ago and one normally in communion with Nature and

the environment generating him, there developed

instead a being that was uprooted from the soil,

unfit for life, and a stranger to all normal

conditions of existence.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff, The Herald of Coming Good

“The general psyche of the modern man is split

into three, so to say, completely independent "

entities ", which bear no relation to each other

and which are separate both in their functions

and in their manifestations, whereas, according

to historical data, these three sources formed,

in the majority of people, even in the time of

the Babylonian civilisation, one indivisible

whole, which appeared to be at once a common

repository of all their perceptions and the

radiating Centre of their manifestations.

Because of this one-sided education of the modern

man, upon the attainment of his majority, these

three entirely independent sources or centres of

his life, that is, firstly, the source of his

intellectual life, secondly, the source of his "

emotional " life, and, thirdly, his instinct or "

motor " centre, instead of fusing inwardly in the

normal way to produce common outer

manifestations, have become, especially of late,

quite independent outward functions, and not only

the methods of education of those functions, but

also the quality of their manifestations, have

become dependent on special outer subjective

conditions.   According to the deductions based

on detailed experiments made by Mr. Gurdjieff

himself, as well as those by many other people

who have seriously thought about this question,

every really conscious perception and

manifestation of man can only result from the

simultaneous and co-ordinate working of the three

aforesaid sources, which make up his general

individuality, and each of which must fulfil its

role, that is, furnish its own share of

associations and experiences.   The complete

achievement of the requisite and normal

manifestation in each distinct case is possible

only upon the co-ordination of the activity of

all these three sources.   In the modern man,

partly owing to his abnormal education during his

preparatory age, and partly owing to influences

due to certain causes of the generally

established abnormal conditions of modern life,

the working of his psychic centres during his

responsible age is almost entirely disconnected,

therefore his intellectual, emotional and

instinctive motor functions do not serve as a

natural complement and corrective for one

another, but, on the contrary, travel along

different roads, which rarely meet and for this

reason permit very little leisure for obtaining

that, which should in reality be understood by

the word " consciousness ", wrongly used by

modern people today.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff, The Herald of Coming Good

“This realisation of disconnected and conflicting

activity of the centres of origin, which ought to

represent the psyche of man, and, at the same

time, of the complete absence of even a

theoretical conception of the indispensability of

an education corresponding to these separate,

relatively independent parts, setting aside the

ignorance of its practical application, must

inevitably lead to the conclusion that man is not

master even of himself.   He cannot be master of

himself, for not only does he not control these

centres, which ought to function in complete

subordination to his consciousness, but he does

not even know which of his centres governs them

all.   The system applied in the Institute For

Man's Harmonious Development for observing human

psychic activities clearly demonstrates that the

modern man never acts of his own accord, but only

manifests actions stimulated by external

irritations.   The modern man does not think, but

something thinks for him ; he does not act, but

something acts through him ; he does not create,

but something is created through him ; he does

not achieve, but something is achieved through

him.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff, The Herald of Coming Good

“decided to make use of one of the oddities of

that freshly baked fashionable language called

“English,” and each time the occasion requires

it, to swear by my “English soul.” The point is

that in this fashionable language the word for

“soul” and the word for the bottom of the foot,

also “sole,” are pronounced and even written

almost alike. I do not know how it is for you,

who are already half a candidate for a buyer of

my writings, but as for me, no matter how great

my mental desire, my peculiar nature cannot avoid

being indignant at this manifestation of people

of contemporary civilization, whereby the very

highest in man, particularly beloved by our

Common Father Creator, can be named and often

understood as that which is lowest and dirtiest

in man.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff,

“When my grandmother—may she attain the Kingdom

of Heaven—was dying, my mother, as was then the

custom, took me to her bedside and, as I kissed

her right hand, my dear grandmother placed her

dying left hand on my head and said in a whisper,

yet very distinctly: “Eldest of my grandsons!

Listen and always remember my strict injunction

to you: In life never do as others do.” Having

said this, she gazed at the bridge of my nose

and, evidently noticing my perplexity and my

obscure understanding of what she had said, added

somewhat angrily and imperiously: “Either do

nothing—just go to school—or do something nobody

else does Whereupon she immediately, without

hesitation and with a perceptible impulse of

disdain for all around her, and with commendable

self-cognizance, gave up her soul directly into

the hands of His Faithfulness, the Archangel

Gabriel.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff, Beelzebub's Tales to His

Grandson

“Time in itself does not exist, there is only the

totality of the results issuing from all the

cosmic phenomena present in a given place.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff,

“Consider everything belonging to another as if

it were your own, and so treat it.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff,

“Everything existing in the world “falls to the

bottom.” The “bottom” for any part of the

Universe is its nearest “stability,” and this

stability is the point toward which all the lines

of force from all directions converge.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff,

“MY DEAR and kind Grandfather, will you please

explain to me, if only in a general way, why is

it that the beings on the planet Earth take the

ephemeral for the real?” To this question of his

grandson, Beelzebub replied: “On the planet Earth

this particularity in the psyche of the three-

brained beings arose only during later periods;

and it arose only because their predominant part,

formed in them as in all three-brained beings,

gradually allowed the other parts of their total

presence to perceive every new impression without

fulfilling what is called ‘being-partkdolgduty,’

that is to say, merely as such impressions are

generally perceived by one or another of their

independent localizations known as ‘being-

centers.’ Or, to put it in their language, they

believe everything anybody says, instead of

believing only what they have been able to verify

by their own ‘sane deliberation’—in other words,

only those convictions they have reached as a

result of confronting and evaluating the data

already deposited in them, which have given rise

to different conceptions in each of their

localizations of diverse nature.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff,

“As he was rummaging about, a book called ‘The

Gospels’ fell into his hands. ” ‘The Gospels’ is

the name given there to a book written once upon

a time by a certain Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John

about Jesus Christ, a Messenger from our

Endlessness to that planet. “This book is widely

circulated among the three-centered beings there

who nominally exist according to the indications

of this Messenger. “And when this ‘writer’

happened to come across that book, the notion

suddenly popped into his head: ‘Why shouldn’t I

also write a gospel?’ “According to certain

investigations that I had to make for quite

different needs of mine, he must then have

deliberated as follows: ‘Am I any worse than

those ancient barbarians, Matthew, Mark, Luke,

and Johnnie? ‘At least I am more cultured than

they were, and I can certainly write a much

better gospel for my contemporaries. ‘What is

more, a gospel is the very thing that is needed

just now, because the “English” and “Americans”

have a great weakness for this book, and the rate

of exchange of their pounds and dollars is “not

half bad” just now.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff,

“The Institute For Man's Harmonious Development",

is due to the fact that the future

representatives of this " typicality " have

never, either with a view to the real

understanding of actuality, or in the period of

their preparatory age, or, again, in the period

of their responsible life, absolutely never, and

in spite of the obvious necessity of such a step,

laid themselves open to experience, but have

contented themselves with other people's

fantasies, forming from them illusory conceptions

and, at the same time, limiting themselves to

intercourse with those like them, and have

automatised themselves to a point of engaging

upon authoritative discussions of all kinds of

seemingly scientific, but, for the most part,

abstract themes.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff,

“During these uninterrupted peregrinations of

mine from place to place, and almost continuous

and intense reflection about this, I at last

formed a preliminary plan in my mind.

Liquidating all my affairs and mobilizing all my

material and other possibilities, I began to

collect all kinds of written literature and oral

information, still surviving among certain

Asiatic peoples, about that branch of science,

which was highly developed in ancient times and

called " Mehkeness ", a name signifying the "

taking away-of-responsibility ", and of which

contemporary civilisation knows but an

insignificant portion under the name of "

hypnotism ", while all the literature extant upon

the subject was already as familiar to me as my

own five fingers.   Collecting all I could, I

went to a certain Dervish monastery, situated

likewise in Central Asia and where I had already

stayed before, and, settling down there, I

devoted myself wholly to the study of the

material in my possession.   After two years of

thorough theoretical study of this branch of

science, when it became necessary to verify

practically certain indispensable details, not as

yet sufficiently elucidated by me in theory, of

the mechanism of the functioning of man's

subconscious sphere, I began to give myself out

to be a " healer " of all kinds of vices and to

apply the results of my theoretical studies to

them, affording them at the same time, of course,

real relief.   This continued to be my exclusive

preoccupation and manifestation for four or five

years in accordance with the essential oath

imposed by my task, which consisted in rendering

conscientious aid to sufferers, in never using my

knowledge and practical power in that domain of

science except for the sake of my investigations,

and never for personal or egotistical ends, I not

only arrived at unprecedented practical results

without equal in our day, but also elucidated

almost everything necessary for me.   In a short

time, I discovered many details which might

contribute to the solution of the same cardinal

question, as well as many secondary facts, the

existence of which I had scarcely suspected.   At

the same time, I also became convinced that the

greater number of minor details necessary for the

final elucidation of this question must be sought

not only in the sphere of man's subconscious

mentation, but in various aspects of the

manifestations in his state of waking

consciousness.   After establishing this

definitely, thoughts again began from time to

time to " swarm " in my mind, as they had done

years ago, sometimes automatically, sometimes

directed by my consciousness,—thoughts as to the

means of adapting myself now to the conditions of

ordinary life about me with a view to elucidating

finally and infallibly this question, which

obviously had become a lasting and inseparable

part of my Being.   This time my reflections,

which recurred periodically during the two years

of my wanderings on the continents of Asia,

Europe and Africa, resulted in a decision to make

use of my exceptional, for the modern man,

knowledge of the so-called " supernatural

sciences ", as well as of my skill in producing

different " tricks " in the domain of these so-

called " sciences ", and to give myself out to

be, in these pseudo-scientific domains, a so-

called " professor-instructor ".”
? G.I. Gurdjieff,

“think and convince the unconscious parts—as if

they were conscious—that if they hinder your

general functioning in the process of ordinary

existence, then in the period of your responsible

age they will not only be unable to enjoy the

good that is proper to them, but also your whole

presence, of which they are a part, will not be

capable of becoming a good servant of our Common

Endless Creator, and will thus be unable to pay

honorably for your arising and existence.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff,

“On the planet Earth also, three-brained beings

are formed, and they too contain all the data for

higher being-bodies to be coated in them. “But in

‘strength of spirit’ they do not begin to compare

with the beings breeding on the little planet I

just mentioned The external coating of the

three-brained beings of that planet Earth closely

resembles our own, except that their skin is a

little slimier than ours Moreover, they have no

tails, and their heads are without horns But the

worst thing about them is their feet, for they

have no hoofs”
? G.I. Gurdjieff,

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