“Q. Surely it is easier to be objective about other people than about oneself? A. No, it is more difficult. If you become… — P.D. Ouspensky Copy Share Image
Psychology is sometimes called a new science. This is quite wrong. Psychology is, perhaps, the oldest science, and, unfortunately, in its most… — P.D. Ouspensky Copy Share Image
“Everything 'happens'. People can 'do' nothing. From the time we are born to the time we die things happen, happen, happen, and we think… — P.D. Ouspensky Copy Share Image
Man is a machine which reacts blindly to external forces and, this being so, he has no will, and very little control… — P.D. Ouspensky Copy Share Image
“Q. But it seems to me there are circumstances that simply induce one to have negative emotions! A. This is one of… — P.D. Ouspensky Copy Share Image
I had come to the conclusion a long time ago that there was no escape from the labyrinth of contradictions in which we live except by an entirely new road, unlike anything hitherto known or used by us. But where this new or forgotten road began I was unable to say. I already knew then as an undoubted fact that… — P.D. Ouspensky Copy Share
It is only when we realize that life is taking us nowhere that it begins to have meaning. — P.D. Ouspensky Copy Share Image
To remember oneself means the same thing as to be aware of oneself - I am. It is not a function, not thinking, not… — P.D. Ouspensky Copy Share Image
In all living nature (and perhaps also in that which we consider as dead) love is the motive force which drives the creative activity… — P.D. Ouspensky Copy Share Image
Begin with the possible: begin with one step. There is always a limit you cannot do more than you can do. If you try… — P.D. Ouspensky Copy Share Image
“Suddenly I began to find a strange meaning in old fairy-tales; woods, rivers, mountains, became living beings; mysterious life filled the night; with new interests and new expectations I began to dream again of distant travels; and I remembered many extraordinary things that I had heard about old monasteries. Ideas and feelings which had long since ceased to interest me… — P.D. Ouspensky Copy Share
The greatest barrier to consciousness is the belief that one is already conscious. — P.D. Ouspensky Copy Share Image
Ideas by themselves cannot produce change of being; your effort must go in the right direction, and one must correspond to the other. — P.D. Ouspensky Copy Share Image
Desire is when you do what you want, will is when you can do what you do not want. — P.D. Ouspensky Copy Share Image
Divide in yourself the mechanical from the conscious, see how little there is of the conscious, how seldom it works, and how strong is… — P.D. Ouspensky Copy Share Image
“The most important factor in every function is: ‘Is it under our control or not?’ So when imagination is under our control we do not even call it imagination; we call it by various names—visualization, creative thinking, inventive thinking—you can find a name for each special case. But when it comes by itself and controls us so that we are… — P.D. Ouspensky Copy Share
