If you want to remember yourself, the best thing is not to think about yourself. As long as you think about yourself, you will not remember yourself.
P.D. OuspenskyRead
I have become so accustomed to think "scientifically" that I am afraid even to imagine that there may be something else beyond the outer covering of life. I feel like a man condemned to death, whose companions have been hanged and who has already become reconciled to the thought that the same fate awaits him.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote expresses a fear of losing the ability to think beyond a scientific perspective, likening it to the resignation of a man awaiting his execution.
In this quote, P.D. Ouspensky reflects on the limitations of a scientific worldview, suggesting that an over-reliance on this approach can confine one's imagination and understanding of life's deeper mysteries. He compares this confinement to the existential dread of a man awaiting death, highlighting the emotional toll of being bound by a singular perspective.
Themes
ScientificImaginationLifeExistencePerspectiveFear
In practice
Example use cases
During a philosophy lecture about the limitations of scientific thinking.
More from P.D. Ouspensky
All quotes →Can one alter one´s chief feature?" asked someone else. First it is necessary to know it. If you know it, much will depend on the quality of your knowing. If you know it well, then it is possible to change it.
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People live in sleep, do everything in sleep, and do not know they are asleep.
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We often think we express negative emotions, not because we cannot help it, but because we should express them.
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You can understand other people only as much as you understand yourself and only on the level of your own being. This means you can judge other people's knowledge but you cannot judge their being. You can see in them only as much as you have in yourself. But people always make the mistake of thinking they can judge other people's being. In reality, if they wish to meet and understand people of a higher development than themselves they must work with the aim of changing their being.
P.D. OuspenskyRead
When a man begins to know himself a little he will see in himself many things that are bound to horrify him. So long as a man is not horrified at himself he knows nothing about himself.
P.D. OuspenskyRead
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