47 Quotes by P.D. Ouspensky

Man has no permanent and unchangeable I. Every thought, every mood, every desire, every sensation says “I.” And in each case it seems to be taken for granted that this I belongs to the Whole, to the whole man, and that a thought, a desire, or an aversion is expressed by this Whole.

Most people can accept the truth only in the form of a lie.

One cannot keep all the old views and opinions and acquire new ones.

Effort plus motive equals result.

I’ve found that the chief difficulty for most people was to realize that they had really heard new things: that is things that they had never heard before. They kept translating what they heard into their habitual language. They had ceased to hope and believe there might be anything new.

Man is confronted with two obvious facts: The existence of the world in which he lives; and the existence of psychic life in himself.

Art is the communication of ecstasy.

Ideas by themselves cannot produce change of being; your effort must go in the right direction, and one must correspond to the other.

I mean that you always know what results will come from one or another of your actions; but in a strange way you want to do one thing and get the result that could only come from another.