Tertium Organum Quotes

“Thus space and time, defining everything that we cognize by sensuous means, are in themselves just forms of consciousness, categories of our intellect, the prism through which we regard the world—or in other words space and time do not represent properties of the world, but just properties of our knowledge of the world gained through our sensuous organism. Consequently the world, until by these means we come into relation to it, has neither extension in space nor existence in time; these are properties which we add to it.”
― P.D. Ouspensky, Tertium Organum (The Third Organ of Thought): A key to the enigmas of the world

“The microscopic living cell is more powerful than a volcano- the idea is more powerful than the geological cataclysm.”
― P.D. Ouspensky, Tertium Organum

“But the worst about a self-element is that its presence is never dreamed of till it is got rid of.”
― P.D. Ouspensky, Tertium Organum

“We do not comprehend all these matters quite clearly, but in general it is plain that we think in space and time by perceptions TERTIUM ORGANUM ' only; but by concepts we think independently of space and time.”
― P.D. Ouspensky, Tertium Organum (The Third Organ of Thought): A key to the enigmas of the world

“Positivism is very good when it seeks an answer to the question of how something operates under given conditions; but when it makes the attempt to get outside of its definite conditions (space, time, causation), or presumes to affirm that nothing exists outside of these given conditions, then it is transcending its own proper sphere.”
― P.D. Ouspensky, Tertium Organum

“A man easily admits his incompetency in music, dancing, or higher mathematics, but he always maintains the privilege of having an opinion and being a judge of questions relating to "first principles.”
― P.D. Ouspensky, Tertium Organum (The Third Organ of Thought): A key to the enigmas of the world