George Gurdjieff Quotes

One of the best means for arousing the wish to work on yourself is to realize that you may die at any moment. But first you must learn how to keep it in mind.

During the latter three centuries the process itself of their existence has become such that in the presences of most of them during their daily existence those 'being-confrontative-associations' almost no longer arise, which usually proceed in three-brained beings thanks to every kind of new perception, and from which alone can data be crystallized in the common presences of three-brained beings for their own individuality.

Well then, when your favorites, existing in such a manner in their 'daily life,' go to these contemporary theaters and follow the senseless manipulations of these contemporary actors, and receive 'shocks' one after the other from every kind of reminiscence, already previously perceived, of not less senseless and absurd notions, then during this waking state of theirs, they willy-nilly obtain more or less tolerable being-associations, so that when they go home and go to bed they sleep much better than usual.

Although indeed these contemporary theaters with all that proceeds in them happen to be in this way — but of course only 'for today' — an excellent means for better sleep, nevertheless the objectively evil consequences of these theaters for beings, and particularly for the rising generation, are incalculable.

The chief harm for them from these theaters is that they are an additional factor for the complete destruction in them of all possibilities of ever possessing the need, proper to three-brained beings, called the 'need-for-real-perceptions.

I repeat, if the strings of this piano are tuned correctly, and the required vibrations are evoked in the corresponding strings, the resulting blending of vibrations coincides almost exactly, even mathematically, with the law-conformable totality of vibrations of the substances issuing from corresponding cosmic sources, according to the sacred Heptaparaparshinokh.

Until you stop being governed by your emotions you cannot be impartial.

"I have already said before that sacrifice is necessary. Without sacrifice, nothing can be attained. But if there is anything in the world that people do not understand it is the idea of sacrifice. They think they have to sacrifice something that they have. For example, I once said that they must sacrifice "faith", "tranquility", or "health." All these words must be taken in quotation marks. In actual fact, they have to sacrifice only what they imagine they have, and which in reality they do not have. They must sacrifice their fantasies. This is difficult for them, very difficult. It is much easier to sacrifice real things.
Another thing that people must give up is their suffering. It is very difficult also to sacrifice one's suffering. A man will renounce any pleasure you like but he will not give up his suffering. Man is made in such a way that he is never so attached to anything as he is to his suffering. And it is necessary to be free from suffering. No one who is not free from suffering, who has not sacrificed his suffering, can work. Nothing can be attained without suffering but at the same time, one must begin by sacrificing suffering. Now, decipher what this means."

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.

Formerly, it may be said, my whole being was possessed by egoism. All my manifestations and experiencings flowed from my vanity. The meeting with Father Giovanni killed all this, and from then on there gradually arose in me that "something" which has brought the whole of me to the unshakable conviction that, apart from the vanities of life, there exists a "something else" which must be the aim and ideal of every more or less thinking man, and that it is only this something else which may make a man really happy and give him real values, instead of the illusory "goods" with which in ordinary life he is always and in everything full.

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.

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.

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.

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.

All this teaching given in fragments must be pieced together, and observations and actions must be connected to it. If there is no paste, nothing will stick.

Faith of consciousness is freedom Faith of feeling is weakness Faith of body is stupidity.

And the second reason is that the terrestrial being who made these experiments, thanks to the knowledge of cosmic vibrations he had acquired, was the sole and unique being who, during the many centuries that I existed upon the Earth, recognized and came to know my true nature.

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.