G. I. Gurdjieff quotes - page 3

G. I. Gurdjieff was a Greek-Armenian spiritual teacher and mystic, renowned for introducing the Fourth Way philosophy to the West. His teachings blend elements of Eastern and Western esoteric traditions and focus on awakening human consciousness. He inspired many followers and schools dedicated to self-development and inner transformation. Here are 81 of his quotes:

Most prayers have nothing in common with petitions.

G. I. Gurdjieff

The evolution of man is the evolution of his consciousness.

G. I. Gurdjieff

It is impossible to recognize a wrong way without knowing the right way.

G. I. Gurdjieff

Thus they have a good side as well as a bad side.

G. I. Gurdjieff

Knowledge can be acquired by a suitable and complete study, no matter what the starting point is.

G. I. Gurdjieff

Therefore if his actions are opposed to those which are demanded by a given religion he cannot assert that he belongs to that religion.

G. I. Gurdjieff

LIBERATION LEADS TO LIBERATION.

G. I. Gurdjieff

One of man's important mistakes, one which must be remembered, is his illusion in regard to his I.

G. I. Gurdjieff

The power of changing oneself lies not in the mind, but in the body and the feelings. Unfortunately, however, our body and our feelings are so constituted that they don't care a jot about anything so long as they are happy.

G. I. Gurdjieff

Death must come before rebirth. But what must die? False confidence in one's own knowledge, self-love and egoism. Our egoism must be broken.

G. I. Gurdjieff

This is exactly what people do not understand.

G. I. Gurdjieff

By liberation is meant the liberation which is the aim of all schools, all religions, at all times.

G. I. Gurdjieff

ACCORDING TO the numerous deductions and conclusions made by me during experimental elucidations concerning the productivity of the perception by contemporary people of new impressions from what is heard and read, and also according to the thought of one of the sayings of popular wisdom I have just remembered, handed down to our days from very ancient times, which declares: "Any prayer may be heard by the Higher Powers and a corresponding answer obtained only if it is uttered thrice: :Firstly-for the welfare or the peace of the souls of one's parents. :Secondly-for the welfare of one's neighbor. :And only thirdly-for oneself personally.

G. I. Gurdjieff

There is nothing compulsory. One is not asked to violate cherished beliefs or accept any of the ideas presented. Rather, a healthy skepticism is encouraged.

G. I. Gurdjieff

A man can only attain knowledge with the help of those who possess it. This must be understood from the very beginning. One must learn from him who knows.

G. I. Gurdjieff

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

G. I. Gurdjieff

Without struggle, no progress and no result. Every breaking of habit produces a change in the machine.

G. I. Gurdjieff

Religion is doing; a man does not merely think his religion or feel it, he lives his religion as much as he is able, otherwise it is not religion but fantasy or philosophy.

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

The being of two people can differ from one another more than the being of a mineral and of an animal. This is exactly what people do not understand. And they do not understand that knowledge depends on being. Not only do they not understand this latter but they definitely do not wish to understand it.

G. I. Gurdjieff

When we speak of prayer or of the results of prayer we always imply only one kind of prayer - petition, or we think that petition can be united with all other kinds of prayers.... Most prayers have nothing in common with petitions. I speak of ancient prayers; many of them are much older than Christianity. These prayers are, so to speak, recapitulations; by repeating them aloud or to himself a man endeavors to experience what is in them, their whole content, with his mind and his feeling.

G. I. Gurdjieff

I find it necessary on the first page of this book, quite ready for publication, to give the following advice:.

G. I. Gurdjieff