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Enlightenment Quotes

Browse 3092 quotes about Enlightenment.

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Enlightenment Quotes

“Enlightenment is like witnessing the brilliant sun for the first time in the morning. It is like seeing the beautiful flowers that grow in the woods , the frolicking deer, a bird flying proudly, or fish swimming. Life is not all that grim. In the morning when you brush your teeth, you can see how shiny they are. Reality has its own gallantry, spark, and arrogance. You can study life while you are alive. You can study how you can achieve the brilliance of life.”

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Author:Chogyam Trungpa
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“The study of infinity is much more than a dry academic game. The intellectual pursuit of the absolute infinity is, as Georg Cantor realized, a form of the soul's quest for God. Whether or not the goal is ever reached, an awareness of the process brings enlightenment.”

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Book:Infinity and the Mind: The Science and Philosophy of the Infinite
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“Ask yourself these two questions: Do I remember at every moment that I am dying, and that everyone and everything else is, and so treat all beings at all times with compassion? Has my understanding of death and impermanence become so keen and so urgent that I am devoting every second to the pursuit of enlightenment? If you can answer "yes" to both of these, then you really understand impermanence.”

IfsTwoMomentsRememberDeathAsksUnderstandingAnswersCompassionDyingEnlightenmentTreatsPursuitAll TimeUrgentImpermanenceEvery Second
Author:Sogyal Rinpoche
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“Enlightenment means literally aligning to the Energy of my Source. And genius is only about focusing. Law of Attraction takes care of everything else. Physical humans often want to make enlightenment about finding some process and moving through the process that has been pre-described. But true enlightenment is moving to the rhythm of the internal inspiration that is coming in response to the individual desire. Enlightenment is about allowing my Connection to the Source that is me for the fulfillment of the things that I have individually defined here in my time-space-reality.”

WantHumansMeanHas BeensRealityInspirationCareMovingLawDesireIndividualEnergyProcessSpaceSourceGeniusFindingsEnlightenmentConnectionsResponseTake CareAttractionRhythmDefinedLaw Of AttractionFulfillmentMy TimeInternalsAllowing
Author:Esther Hicks
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“No government by experts in which the masses do not have the chance to inform the experts as to their needs can be anything but an oligarchy managed in the interest of the few. And the enlightenment must proceed in ways which force the administrative specialists to take account of the needs. The world has suffered more from leaders and authorities than from the masses. The essential need ... is the improvement of the methods and conditions of debate, discussion and persuasion. That is the problem of the public.”

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Book:The Public and Its Problems: An Essay in Political Inquiry
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“The search ends with the realization that there is no such thing as enlightenment. By searching, you want to be free from the self, but whatever you are doing to free yourself from the self is the self. How can I make you understand this simple thing? There is no 'how'. If I tell you that, it will only add more momentum to that (search), strengthen that momentum. That is the question of all questions: "How, how, how?"”

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Author:U.G. Krishnamurti
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“The curve of life is like the parabola of a projectile which, disturbed from its initial state of rest, rises and then returns to a state of repose... Like a projectile flying to its goal, life ends in death. Even its ascent and its zenith are only steps and means to this goal... For, enlightenment or no enlightenment, consciousness or no consciousness, nature prepares itself for death.”

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Author:Carl Jung
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“Lisp is worth learning for the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it; that experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use Lisp itself a lot.”

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Book:The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary
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“Since my first discussions of ecological problems with Professor John Day around 1950 and since reading Konrad Lorenz's "King Solomon's Ring," I have become increasingly interested in the study of animals for what they might teach us about man, and the study of man as an animal. I have become increasingly disenchanted with what the thinkers of the so-called Age of Enlightenment tell us about the nature of man, and with what the formal religions and doctrinaire political theorists tell us about the same subject.”

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Author:Allan McLeod Cormack
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“Enlightenment is finding that there is nothing to find. Enlightenment is to come to know that there is nowhere to go. Enlightenment is the understanding that this is all, that this is perfect, that this is it. Enlightenment is not an achievement, it is an understanding that there is nothing to achieve, nowhere to go. You are already there - you have never been away. You cannot be away from there. God has never been missed. Maybe you have forgotten, that's all. Maybe you have fallen asleep, that's all.”

KnowsGodSpiritualUnderstandingPerfectKnowingAchieveAchievementFindingsEnlightenmentPerfectionForgottenFallenSpiritual AwakeningMysticNowhere To Go
Author:Rajneesh
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“To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence.”

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Book:Complete Short Stories of Joseph Conrad (Including His Memoirs, Letters & Critical Essays: Unforgettable Tales like Heart of Darkness, Point of Honor, Falk, Secret Sharer, The Return & Freya of Seven Isles
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“There was a famous Zen master whom people would seek out to become enlightened. He was strict and would occupy people with things having nothing to do with seeking enlightenment. You see, that is the only way to achieve enlightenment; by not focusing on achieving it. Then, one day it will just come to you.”

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Author:Masaaki Hatsumi
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“Carla Hesse has given us an astonishing new look at women's struggle for independent expression and moral autonomy during the French Revolution and afterward. Denied the political and civil rights of men, literary women plunged into the expanded world of publication, answering the men's philosophical treatises with provocative novels about women's choices and chances. Lively and learned, The Other Enlightenment links women from Madame de Stael to Simone de Beauvoir in an alternate and daring path to the modern.”

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Author:Natalie Zemon Davis
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“Muhammad brought down from heaven and put into the Koran not religious doctrines only, but political maxims, criminal and civil laws, and scientific theories. The Gospels on the other hand, deal only with the general relations between man and God and between man and man. Beyond that, they teach nothing and do not oblige people to believe anything. That alone, among a thousand reasons, is enough to show that Islam will not be able to hold its power long in ages of enlightenment and democracy, while Christianity is destined to reign in such ages, as in all others.”

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Author:Alexis de Tocqueville
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“Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter, by peaceful or revolutionary means, into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.”

MenTryingMayMeanTwoDifferentLawPoliticalPurposeWishClassShareDegreesEnlightenmentVictimInjusticeProfitPeacefulRevolutionaryOrganizedRebelProposePolitical PowerPlunder
Book:The Law
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“Now that science has helped us to overcome the awe of the unknown in nature, we are the slaves of social pressures of our own making. When called upon to act independently, we cry for patterns, systems, and authorities. If by enlightenment and intellectual progress we mean the freeing of man from superstitious belief in evil forces, in demons and fairies, in blind fate--in short, the emancipation from fear--then denunciation of what is currently called reason is the greatest service reason can render.”

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Book:EPZ Eclipse of Reason
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“I think we should be very clear on this. You know, this country was founded on the principles of the Enlightenment... It was the idea that people could talk, reason, have dialogue, discuss the issues. It wasn't founded on the idea that someone would get struck by a divine inspiration and know everything right from wrong. I mean, people who founded this country had religion, they had strong beliefs, but they believed in reason, in dialogue, in civil discourse. We can't lose that in this country. We've got to get it back.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsShouldMeanIdeasCountryReasonInspirationBeliefStrongLosesPrinciplesIssuesClearDivineEnlightenmentDialogueDiscourseMean PeopleDivine Inspiration
Author:Wesley Clark
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“SAUCE, n. The one infallible sign of civilization and enlightenment. A people with no sauces has one thousand vices; a people with one sauce has only nine hundred and ninety-nine. For every sauce invented and accepted a vice is renounced and forgiven.”

PeopleFoodCivilizationThousandEnlightenmentHundredVicesAcceptedNineForgivenNinetySauceInfallibleNinety Nine
Book:The Devil's Dictionary: A Selection of the Bitter Definitions of Ambrose Bierce
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“Broadly speaking, I learned to recognize sin as the refusal to live up to the enlightenment we possess: to know the right order of values and deliberately to choose the lower ones: to know that, however much these values may differ with different people at different stages of spiritual growth, for one's self there must be no compromise with that which one knows to be the lower value.”

PeopleKnowsMayDifferentSelfSpiritualValuesOrderGrowthSinLearningStageEnlightenmentCompromiseSpiritual GrowthDifferent PeoplesRefusalNo Compromise
Author:Margaret Bondfield
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“In the assemblies of the enlightened ones there have been many cases of mastering the Way bringing forth the heart of plants and trees; this is what awakening the mind for enlightenment is like. The fifth patriarch of Zen was once a pine-planting wayfarer; Rinzai worked on planting cedars and pines on Mount Obaku. . . . Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment.”

IfsWayMindHeartHas BeensSpiritualityPracticeCasesTreeWallEnlightenmentPlantAwakeningEnlightenedGardeningFenceFifthSincerelyAssemblyPlant A TreeCedarsPlants And TreesPatriarch
Author:Dogen
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“Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.”

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Author:Gautama Buddha
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“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”

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Author:Gautama Buddha
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“You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”

LoveInspirationalPersonsUniverseFoundLove YouSelf EsteemPositiveBuddhismSelf LoveEnlightenmentDeserveAffectionPositivityEsteemBuddhistEnlightenedBullyingSelf AcceptanceLove YourselfBullyDeservingLoving YourselfHolisticSelf CompassionLove And CompassionLove MyselfI Love MyselfSiddharthaBoost Your Self EsteemLove And AffectionWise BuddhistLove Your SelfLove Yourself MoreYourself And LoveReal BuddhistInspirational BuddhistLoving MyselfCompassion For YourselfGreat Self EsteemSpiritual EnlightenmentDeserve LoveI Hate MyselfSelf Esteem BuildingBuilding Self EsteemDeserve More
Author:Gautama Buddha
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“Forget about enlightenment. Sit down wherever you are and listen to the wind that is singing in your veins. Feel the love, the longing and the fear in your bones. Open your heart to who you are, right now, not who you would like to be. Not the saint you're striving to become. But the being right here before you, inside you, around you. All of you is holy. You're already more and less than whatever you can know. Breathe out, look in, let go.”

KnowsLoveLifeFeelsLooksHeartMotivationalSpiritualFearForgetWindBecomingHolyRight NowLetting GoMindfulnessSingingEnlightenmentYogaWho You AreLongingStriveSaintBonesBreatheUpliftingBeing YourselfBelieve In YourselfVeinsFollow Your HeartListen To Your HeartJust Be YourselfListen To YourselfWherever You AreOpen Your Heart
Author:John Welwood
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