Matthew Holbert > Matthew's Quotes

“Science does not see beyond the atom interacting with atom, the chemicals interacting with chemicals. The scientist cannot see the impressive existence of himself. Academics will never learn the meaning of life because they don’t feel it; they can only accept its existence as fact. “I think therefore I am.” And yet, thought is a cloud reflecting the impressions of a consciousness. I am therefore I think. The academic mind does not appreciate life in the festive sense therefore—derailed to love by a numb perspective. Life is an unknown, death is a mystery; no, life is a mystery, death is the unknown—in the sense that I will un-know my self in death. Science ignores the ultimate question in pursuance of the distant things, the most superficial things. One must discover from the inside out to discover he is made of nothing, and in that supreme emptiness, he is connected directly to everything that he studies.”
― Matthew Holbert

“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

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

“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

“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

“Do not repeat after me words that you do not understand. Do not merely put on a mask of my ideas, for it will be an illusion and you will thereby deceive yourself.”
― J. Krishnamurti

“There is only one moment; its events are infinitely unfolding, increasing at every passing second—meaning that they were somehow compressed before. This moment was never smaller, but less beauty was exposed in the physical form, yet still this flower blooms. I think we tend to see time as the events alone; in this sense, we view objects as a means of measurement to time. But we forget the place of events in time is change. I am the measurement to my own happiness; time is the breadth of that beauty, and that beauty is the measurement of this moment’s grandeur. Somehow compressed, potential beauty was enfolded infinitely from the start of time, and now waits in vain for its fullest blossoming.

The fact that there is a progression to time proves that time is not infinite; you can’t approach infinity. Time is more like a dot, expanding on a plane that is infinite; but that dot may as well not be growing, because the plane that its on is growing too. Stagnant, this explains what we call “now” that moment, ever unfolding; matter changes, but not the moment; the only proof that a past exists is our memories. What did it feel like to be four? Like now. My memories of a past are an illusion, because they take place in the now, the one moment.”
― Matthew Holbert

“The fact that corporations constitute what amounts to the governing class today evidences the fact that we are no longer a representative republic; that we are a most ruled people, under the ceaseless control of a government that is for and by the corporations, can no longer be denied. The implications are immense: a transformation of not only our economic but our political organization is necessary.”
― Matthew P. Holbert

“There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives his life by the unfolding of his powers.”
― Erich Fromm, Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics

“One is not loved accidentally; one’s own power to love produces love - just as being interested makes one interesting. People are concerned with the question of whether they are attractive while they forget that the essence of attractiveness is their own capacity to love. To love a person productively implies to care and to feel responsible for his life, not only for his physical existence but for the growth and development of all his human powers. To love productively is incompatible with being passive, with being an onlooker at the loved person’s life; it implies labor and care and the responsibility for his growth.”
― Erich Fromm, Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics

“If faith cannot be reconciled with rational thinking, it has to be eliminated as an anachronistic remnant of earlier stages of culture and replaced by science dealing with facts and theories which are intelligible and can be validated.”
― Erich Fromm, Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics

“The source of irrational authority, on the other hand, is always power over people. This power can be physical or mental, it can be realistic or only relative in terms of the anxiety and helplessness of the person submitting to this authority. Power on the one side, fear on the other, are always the buttresses on which irrational authority is built. Criticism of the authority is not only required but forbidden. Rational authority is based upon the equality of both authority and subject, which differ only with respect to the degree of knowledge of skill in a praticular field. Irrational authority is by its very nature based on inequality, implying difference in value.”
― Erich Fromm, Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics

“The failure of modern culture lies not in its principle of individualism, not in the idea that moral virtue is the same as the pursuit of self-interest, but in the deterioration of the meaning of self-interest; not in the fact that people are too much concerned with their self-interest, but that they are not concerned enough with the interest of their real self; not in the fact that they are too selfish, but that they do not love themselves.”
― Erich Fromm, Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics

“The value judgments we make determine our actions, and upon their validity rests our mental health and happiness.”
― Erich Fromm, Man for Himself: An Inquiry Into the Psychology of Ethics

“...Today the lack of faith is an expression of profound confusion and despair. Once skepticism and rationalism were progressive forces for the development of thought; now they have become rationalizations for relativism and uncertainty.”
― Erich Fromm, Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics