George Gurdjieff
George Gurdjieff Quotes about Life
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 severals of sleeping people are trying to destroy severals 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.
If you help others, you will be helped, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps in one hundred years, but you will be helped. Nature must pay off the debt. It is a mathematical law and all life is mathematics.
In order to understand the interrelation of truth and falsehood in life, a man must understand falsehood in himself, the constant incessant lies he tells himself.
Two things in life are infinite; the stupidity of man and the mercy of God.
Those who have not sown anything during their responsible life will have nothing to reap in the future.
We must strive for freedom if we strive for self-knowledge. The task of self-knowledge and of further self-development is of such importance and seriousness, it demands such intensity of effort, that to attempt it any old way and amongst other things is impossible. The person who undertakes this task must put it first in his life, which is not so long that he can afford to squander it on trifles.
There do exist enquiring minds, which long for the truth of the heart, seek it, strive to solve the problems set by life, try to penetrate to the essence of things and phenomena and to penetrate into themselves. If a man reasons and thinks soundly, no matter which path he follows in solving these problems, he must inevitably arrive back at himself, and begin with the solution of the problem of what he is himself and what his place is in the world around him.
Life is real only then, when "I am".