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'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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the challenge of recognizing new ideas due to preconceived notions and habitual thinking.
P.D. Ouspensky expresses the important realization that many individuals struggle to perceive truly novel concepts because they unconsciously filter new information through their existing beliefs and language patterns. This tendency to revert to familiar interpretations limits their capacity to embrace change and innovation, thereby stifling personal growth and understanding.
Themes
New IdeasHabitual ThinkingPerceptionChangeBelief
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a workshop on creativity to encourage participants to open their minds to new possibilities.
More from P.D. Ouspensky
All quotes →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.
P.D. OuspenskyRead
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.
P.D. OuspenskyRead
People live in sleep, do everything in sleep, and do not know they are asleep.
P.D. OuspenskyRead
We often think we express negative emotions, not because we cannot help it, but because we should express them.
P.D. OuspenskyRead
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
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