Enlightenment Quotes

Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment.

~ Elon Musk

Everything, however complicated - breaking waves, migrating birds, and tropical forests - is made of atoms and obeys the equations of quantum physics. But even if those equations could be solved, they wouldn't offer the enlightenment that scientists seek. Each science has its own autonomous concepts and laws.

~ Martin Rees

You British plundered half the world for your own profit. Let's not pass it off as the Age of Enlightenment.

~ Paddy Chayefsky

Enlightenment is always there. Small enlightenment will bring great enlightenment. If you breathe in and are aware that you are alive - that you can touch the miracle of being alive - then that is a kind of enlightenment.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Movies can be instruments of enlightenment.

~ Marianne Williamson

If we are too friendly to nice, decent bishops, we run the risk of buying into the fiction that there's something virtuous about believing things because of faith rather than because of evidence. We run the risk of betraying scientific enlightenment.

~ Richard Dawkins

When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed.

~ Kurt Vonnegut

Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment.

~ Lao Tzu

Our society is the product of several great religious and philosophical traditions. The ideas of the Greeks and Romans, Christianity, Judaism, humanism and the Enlightenment have made us who we are.

~ Jan Peter Balkenende

Enlightenment values of individual freedom are manifested best in individual acts of criticism and defiance.

~ Pankaj Mishra

It is not the simple statement of facts that ushers in freedom; it is the constant repetition of them that has this liberating effect. Tolerance is the result not of enlightenment, but of boredom.

~ Quentin Crisp

We need enlightenment, not just individually but collectively, to save the planet. We need to awaken ourselves. We need to practice mindfulness if we want to have a future, if we want to save ourselves and the planet.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh