OLena Owens > OLena's Quotes

“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.”
― Erich Fromm

“One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often.”
― Erich Fromm

“Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.”
― Erich Fromm

“That millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane.”
― Erich Fromm, The Sane Society

“There is nothing inhuman, evil, or irrational which does not give some comfort, provided it is shared by a group.”
― Erich Fromm, Psychoanalysis and Religion

“You know, if we understand one question rightly, all questions are answered. But we don't know how to ask the right question. To ask the right question demands a great deal of intelligence and sensitivity. Here is a question, a fundamental question: is life a torture? It is, as it is; and man has lived in this torture centuries upon centuries, from ancient history to the present day, in agony, in despair, in sorrow; and he doesn't find a way out of it. Therefore he invents gods, churches, all the rituals, and all that nonsense, or he escapes in different ways. What we are trying to do, during all these discussions and talks here, is to see if we cannot radically bring about a transformation of the mind, not accept things as they are, nor revolt against them. Revolt doesn't answer a thing. You must understand it, go into it, examine it, give your heart and your mind, with everything that you have, to find out a way of living differently. That depends on you, and not on someone else, because in this there is no teacher, no pupil; there is no leader; there is no guru; there is no Master, no Saviour. You yourself are the teacher and the pupil; you are the Master; you are the guru; you are the leader; you are everything. And to understand is to transform what is.

I think that will be enough, won't it?”
― J. Krishnamurti

“We must love one another or die”
― W.H. Auden

“Thinking is only a small aspect of consciousness. Thought cannot exist without consciousness, but consciousness does not need thought”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
― J. Krishnamurti

“You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti

“The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.”
― J. Krishnamurti

“It is truth that liberates, not your effort to be free.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, The First and Last Freedom

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
― Albert Einstein

“We realize the importance of our voices only when we are silenced.”
― Malala Yousafzai, I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban

“Let us pick up our books and our pens, they are the most powerful weapons.”
― Malala Yousafzai, I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”
― Mark Twain

“Governments want efficient technicians, not human beings, because human beings become dangerous to governments – and to organized religions as well. That is why governments and religious organizations seek to control education.”
― J. Krishnamurti, Education and the Significance of Life: Jiddu Krishnamurti on Freedom, Self-Understanding, and Mature Love

“The following of authority is the denial of intelligence. [It] may help us temporarily to cover up our difficulties and problems; but to avoid a problem is only to intensify it, and in the process, self-knowledge and freedom are abandoned.”
― J. Krishnamurti, Education and the Significance of Life: Jiddu Krishnamurti on Freedom, Self-Understanding, and Mature Love

“To understand a child we have to watch him at play, study him in his different moods; we cannot project upon him our own prejudices, hopes and fears, or mould him to fit the pattern of our desires. If we are constantly judging the child according to our personal likes and dislikes, we are bound to create barriers and hindrances in our relationship with him and in his relationships with the world. Unfortunately, most of us desire to shape the child in a way that is gratifying to our own vanities and idiosyncrasies; we find varying degrees of comfort and satisfaction in exclusive ownership and domination.”
― J. Krishnamurti, Education and the Significance of Life: Jiddu Krishnamurti on Freedom, Self-Understanding, and Mature Love

“To understand life is to understand ourselves, and that is both the beginning and the end of education.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Education and the Significance of Life: Jiddu Krishnamurti on Freedom, Self-Understanding, and Mature Love

“Intelligence is the capacity to perceive the essential, the what is; and to awaken this capacity, in oneself and in others, is education.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Education and the Significance of Life: Jiddu Krishnamurti on Freedom, Self-Understanding, and Mature Love

“From innumerable complexities we must grow to simplicity; we must become simple in our inward life and in our outward needs.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Education and the Significance of Life: Jiddu Krishnamurti on Freedom, Self-Understanding, and Mature Love

“While one is young is the time to investigate, to experiment with everything. The school should help its young people to discover their vocations and responsibilities, and not merely cram their minds with facts and technical knowledge; it should be the soil in which they can grow without fear, happily and integrally.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Education and the Significance of Life: Jiddu Krishnamurti on Freedom, Self-Understanding, and Mature Love

“There is an efficiency inspired by love which goes far beyond and is much greater than the efficiency of ambition; and without love, which brings an integrated understanding of life, efficiency breeds ruthlessness. Is this not what is actually taking place all over the world? Our present education is geared to industrialization and war, its principal aim being to develop efficiency; and we are caught in this machine of ruthless competition and mutual destruction. If education leads to war, if it teaches us to destroy or be destroyed, has it not utterly failed?”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Education and the Significance of Life: Jiddu Krishnamurti on Freedom, Self-Understanding, and Mature Love

“When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti

“Freedom and love go together. Love is not a reaction. If I love you because you love me, that is mere trade, a thing to be bought in the market; it is not love. To love is not to ask anything in return, not even to feel that you are giving something- and it is only such love that can know freedom.”
― J. Krishnamurti

“Tell your friend that in his death, a part of you dies and goes with him. Wherever he goes, you also go. He will not be alone.”
― J. Krishnamurti

“The more you know yourself, the more clarity there is. Self-knowledge has no end - you don't come to an achievement, you don't come to a conclusion. It is an endless river.”
― J. Krishnamurti

“One is never afraid of the unknown; one is afraid of the known coming to an end.”
― Krishnamurti

“Tradition becomes our security, and when the mind is secure it is in decay.”
― J. Krishnamurti