Enlightenment Quotes

The sage is sick of being sick (Tao Te Ching)

~ Robert Baohm

There is no distinction between means and ends. There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way. There is no way to enlightenment, enlightenment is the way.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Everyone smiles in the same language, Happiness knows no frontiers, no age. No difference thar makes us feel apart if a smile can win even a broken heart.

~ Ana Claudia Antunes

The self is a subjective entity created by our thoughts and deeds. All sense of happiness and emotional wellbeing turns upon how a person organizes their stream of consciousness into a creation and development of a positive or negative self-image.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Life is a useless passion, an exciting journey of a mammal in survival mode. Each day is a miracle, a blessing unexplored and the more you immerse yourself in light, the less you will feel the darkness. There is more to life than nothingness. And cynicism. And nihilism. And selfishness. And glorious isolation. Be selfish with yourself, but live your life through your immortal acts, acts that engrain your legacy onto humanity. Transcend your fears and follow yourself into the void instead of letting yourself get eaten up by entropy and decay. Freedom is being yourself without permission. Be soft and leave a lasting impression on everybody you meet

~ Mohadesa Najumi

Your fear of becoming a cliche is what turns you into one. If you remove the fear, we are all really walking contradictions, hypocrites and paradoxical cliches

~ Mohadesa Najumi

You are not always right. It’s not always about being right. The best thing you can offer others is understanding. Being an active listener is about more than just listening, it is about reciprocating and being receptive to somebody else. Everybody has woes. Nobody is safe from pain. However, we all suffer in different ways. So learn to adapt to each person, know your audience and reserve yourself for people who have earned the depths of you

~ Mohadesa Najumi

All my life I have heard the term happiness thrown around like a buzzword as if it is something to be gained. As I have previously expressed, I do not view happiness as a tangible thing. To me happinesss is the elimination of accumulated darkness. Self-sustaining happiness comes from contentment of acceptance, compassion and sympathetic joy, qualities which cannot be developed like a muscle, but rather they must be actualized by the removal of fetters in the mind

~ Mohadesa Najumi

I take it as a compliment when somebody calls me crazy. I would be offended if I was one of the sheeple, one of the sleepwalkers in the matrix or part of the collective hallucination we call 'normal

~ Mohadesa Najumi

The world is perfect, and at the same time, it is in a constant state of unfolding. This is also true for you and me. Our quest for enlightenment is really just a re-connection with something that already exists in us.

~ Victor Shamas

Remember your connection with the cosmos. Remember your connection with the infinity and that remembrance will give you the freedom.

~ Amit Ray

You're only as good as your next thought of yourself.

~ Curtis Tyrone Jones

You're only as good as you're next thought of yourself.

~ Curtis Tyrone Jones

O, weary angels, don’t look at me with those eyes.If that is your state then what of our cries?What can I tell you of goodness that you don’t already know?What can I tell you of faith,of hope and lovethat you yourselves bestow?O, angels, don’t pluck another feather,this isn’t the sky, it’s just the weather.Please, angels, try.We are one all together.Look up and listen, I’ll say it once and then put down my pen:We are sorry for our ignoranceand even though we are worldly,it might happen again.We are sorry for your wearinessand even though you aren’t worldly,we are no more than human.

~ Kamand Kojouri

Enlightenment, and the death which comes before it, is the primary business of Varanasi.

~ Tahir Shah

There are no crash courses on ‘enlightenment’, you only crash in a course like that.

~ Harrish Sairaman

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,The proper study of mankind is Man.Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,A being darkly wise and rudely great:With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest;In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast;In doubt his mind or body to prefer;Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;Alike in ignorance, his reason such,Whether he thinks too little or too much;Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;Still by himself abused or disabused;Created half to rise, and half to fall;Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd;The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides,Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,Correct old time, and regulate the sun;Go, soar with Plato to th’ empyreal sphere,To the first good, first perfect, and first fair;Or tread the mazy round his followers trod,And quitting sense call imitating God;As Eastern priests in giddy circles run,And turn their heads to imitate the sun.Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule—Then drop into thyself, and be a fool!

~ Alexander Pope

This is the sinking womanwhose soul touched the ocean andcaused it to storm kisses.

~ Gloria D. Gonsalves

There is creative reading as well as creative writing.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are searching for the core of our lives; our culture intuits that writing, that ancient activity, might be the pathway...Awakening does not feed ego's needs and desires; it pulverizes the self. Our society couldn't knowingly bear such reduction, so we've tricked ourselves into the same path but call it writing.

~ Natalie Goldberg

To be taught to read—what is the use of that, if you know not whether what you read is false or true? To be taught to write or to speak—but what is the use of speaking, if you have nothing to say? To be taught to think—nay, what is the use of being able to think, if you have nothing to think of? But to be taught to see is to gain word and thought at once, and both true.

~ John Ruskin

Always try and be a better person than you were yesterday, cause we aren't guaranteed tomorrow.

~ Tina A. Morgan

The problem is not that you have problems the problem is that you see having problems as a problem.

~ Maurice Makalu

The quest for enlightenment illustrates the paradox of desire—the fact that you must have desire to be motivated to transcend being ruled by desire.

~ Paul O'brien

If one does not make an ego out of gender, one would still know whether one is a man or a woman, gay, straight, bisexual, transgender—whatever else we may think of. But those identities need to fit very loosely and be worn very lightly. All sense of privilege or deprivation that has developed around one’s gender identity, all rigidity regarding proper roles and behaviors for the various genders, must be cut through.

~ Rita M. Gross

They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretense, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend. I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces, so full of stupid importance.

~ Joseph Conrad

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They have no cause of their own to plead, but while they enlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will not refuse them. Their authors are a natural and irresistible aristocracy in every society, and, more than kings or emperors, exert an influence on mankind.

~ Henry David Thoreau

We do not learn for the benefit of anyone, we learn to unlearn ignorance.

~ Michael Bassey Johnson

The less you know, the more you will be knownThe less you want, the more you will haveThe less you are, the more you will be

~ Vivian Amis

A person must earn enlightenment, Eragon. It is not handed down to you by others, regardless of how revered they be.

~ Christopher Paolini

It is our responsibility to enlighten our people.

~ Sunday Adelaja

Do not give them a candle to light the way, teach them how to make fire instead. That is the meaning of enlightenment.

~ Kamand Kojouri

Innocence is the beginning of ignorance. Experience is the end of stupidity.

~ Michael Bassey Johnson

So the paradox goes: No man who is really ignorant is ever aware that he is ignorant. That is its finest, most faulty manifestation; there can be no true ignorance without first some claim of intelligence or consciousness, or superiority or enlightenment.

~ Criss Jami

Truth is not fully explosive, but purely electric. You don't blow the world up with the truth; you shock it into motion.

~ Criss Jami

The more you know, the less you talk. The less you talk, the more you know.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.

~ Socrates

Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light.

~ Vera Nazarian

Education leads to enlightenment. Enlightenment opens the way to empathy. Empathy foreshadows reform.

~ Derrick A. Bell

It is the task of the enlightened not only to ascend to learning and to see the good but to be willing to descend again to those prisoners and to share their troubles and their honors, whether they are worth having or not. And this they must do, even with the prospect of death.

~ Plato