From any vocabulary of ideas we can build other ideas by formal combinations of signs. But not any set of ideas will be instructive. One must have the right ideas.

Nobody really thinks who does not abstract from that which is given, who does not relate the facts to the factors which have made them, who does not - in his mind - undo the facts. Abstractness is the very life of thought, the token of its authenticity.

Economic reforms based on the idea of limitless growth in a limited world, can only be maintained by the powerful grabbing the resources of the vulnerable. The resource grab that is essential for "growth" creates a culture of rape-the rape of the earth, of local self-reliant economies, and of women.

Confession of our faults is the next thing to innocence.

A person is strong only when he stands upon his own truth, when he speaks and acts from his deepest convictions. Then, whatever the situation he may be in, he always knows what he must say and do. He may fall, but he cannot bring shame upon himself or his cause. If we seek the liberation of the people by means of a lie, we will surely grow confused, go astray, and lose sight of our objective, and if we have any influence at all on the people we will lead them astray as well - in other words, we will be acting in the spirit of reaction and to its benefit.

During his lifetime Gurdjieff did not publish any books on the techniques of his teaching, and his pupils were bound to secrecy on the subject. Since his death in Paris in 1949, however, many of his works have been published, and there has been a flood of memoirs by disciples and admirers. Gurdjieff was in almost ever respect the antithesis of Aleister Crowley. Whereas Crowley craved publicity, Gurdjieff shunned it. Crowley was forgotten for two decades after his death; Gurdjieff on the contrary, has become steadily better known, and his influence continues to grow. One of the main reasons for this is that there was so little of the charlatan about him. He is no cult figure with hordes of gullible disciples. What he has to teach makes an appeal to the intelligence, and can be fully understood only by those who are prepared to make a serious effort.

Exchange value forms the substance of money, and exchange value is wealth.

Venerate the martyrs, praise, love, proclaim, honor them. But worship the God of the martyrs.

If the immediate creator of the universe be he who is proclaimed by Moses, then we hold nobler beliefs concerning him, inasmuch as we consider him to be the master of all things in general, but that there are besides national gods who are subordinate to him and are like viceroys of a king, each administering separately his own province; and, moreover, we do not make him the sectional rival of the gods whose station is subordinate to his. But if Moses first pays honour to a sectional god, and then makes the lordship of the whole universe contrast with his power, then it is better to believe as we do, and to recognise the God of the All, though not without apprehending also the God of Moses; this is better, I say, than to honour one who has been assigned the lordship over a very small portion, instead of the creator of all things.

Most books belong to the house and streets only, and in the fields their leaves feel very thin.

Where are these rational practices to be taught and acquired? Not within the four walls of a bare building, in which formality predominates... But in the nursery, play-ground, fields, gardens, workshops, manufactures, museums and class-rooms. ...The facts collected from all these sources will be concentrated, explained, discussed, made obvious to all, and shown in their direct application to practice in all the business of life.

By reducing any quality to quantity, myth economizes intelligence: it understands reality more cheaply.

We are only puppets, our strings are being pulled by unknown forces.

Classics which at home are drowsily read have a strange charm in a country inn, or in the transom of a merchant brig.

The imagination is always restless and suggests a variety of thoughts, and the will, reason being laid aside, is ready for every extravagant project; and in this State, he that goes farthest out of the way, is thought fittest to lead, and is sure of most followers: And when Fashion hath once Established, what Folly or craft began, Custom makes it Sacred, and 'twill be thought impudence or madness, to contradict or question it. He that will impartially survey the Nations of the World, will find so much of the Governments, Religion, and Manners brought in and continued amongst them by these means, that they will have but little Reverence for the Practices which are in use and credit amongst Men.

Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything.

If a poor person envies a rich person, he is no better than the rich person.

The adjective is the enemy of the substantive.

Nothing could be more natural than the developement of the passions, nor more striking than the views of the human heart. What delicate struggles! and uncommonly pretty turns of thought!

For him who loves labor, there is always something to do.

He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.

It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the publick to be the most anxious for its welfare.

Life is possible only by the deficiencies of our imagination and memory.

I thought: "I am perishing of cold and hunger, and here is a man thinking only of how to clothe himself and his wife, and how to get bread for themselves. He cannot help me. When the man saw me he frowned and became still more terrible, and passed me by on the other side. I despaired, but suddenly I heard him coming back. I looked up, and did not recognize the same man: before, I had seen death in his face; but now he was alive, and I recognized in him the presence of God.

We are all such accidents. We do not make up history and culture. We simply appear, not by our own choice. We make what we can of our condition with the means available. We must accept the mixture as we find it - the impurity of it, the tragedy of it, the hope of it.

Having given up autonomy, reason has become an instrument.

The Scientist must set in order. Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.

When the whole is at stake, there is no crime except that of rejecting the whole, or not defending it. ... Those who identify themselves with the whole, who are installed as the leaders and defenders of the whole can make mistakes, but they cannot do wrong-they are not guilty. They may become guilty again when this identification no longer holds, when they are gone.

No system would have ever been framed if people had been simply interested in knowing what is true, whatever it may be. What produces systems is the interest in maintaining against all comers that some favourite or inherited idea of ours is sufficient and right.

Action is the pointer which shows the balance. We must not touch the pointer but the weight.

I have seen no more evident monstrosity and miracle in the world than myself.

We refuse to have our conscience bound by any work or law, so that by doing this or that we should be righteous, or leaving this or that undone we should be damned.

Marxism exists in nineteenth-century thought as a fish exists in water; that is, it ceases to breathe anywhere else.

The more one presupposes that his own power will suffice him to realize what he desires the more practical is that desire. When I treat a man contemptuously, I can inspire him with no practical desire to appreciate my grounds of truth. When I treat any one as worthless, I can inspire him with no desire to do right.

Too many of our preferences reflect nasty behaviours and states of mind that were genetically adaptive in the ancestral environment. Instead, wouldn't it be better if we rewrote our own corrupt code?

The election... on November 3 ... illustrates a lot of these clashing forces. ..That election was the most important political fight ...in my lifetime. It's important not just for the United States but... for the rest of the world, given the role that the United States has historically played in maintaining that broader liberal international order.

In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.

Each piece of money is a mere coin, or means of circulation, only so long as it actually circulates.

[In cloning,] the Father and the Mother have disappeared, not in the service of an aleatory liberty of the subject, but in the service of a matrix called code.

Throughout the years in which the US was punishing countries that departed from fiscal prudence, it was borrowing on a colossal scale to finance tax cuts and fund its over-stretched military commitments. Now, with federal finances critically dependent on continuing large inflows of foreign capital, it will be the countries that spurned the American model of capitalism that will shape America's economic future.

In an age as agitated as ours, it no longer suffices just to be advertised in the newspaper. To be advertised in this way is the same thing as being consigned to oblivion. If one is to be noticed, once must as least appear on the first page under a hand that points to and, as it were, announces or advertises the advertisement.

With the exception of professional rationalists, today people despair of true knowledge. If the only significant history of human thought were to be written, it would have to be history of its successive regrets and impotences.

The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of the cities, nor the crops - no, but the kind of man the country turns out.

We dread the future only when we are not sure we can kill ourselves when we want to.

For anyone who at the end of Western philosophy can and must still question philosophically, the decisive question is no longer merely "What basic character do beings manifest?" or "How may the being of beings be characterized?" but "What is this 'being' itself?" The decisive question is that of "the meaning of being," not merely that of the being of beings.

Yes, if you happen to be interested in philosophy and good at it, but not otherwise - but so does bricklaying. Anything you're good at contributes to happiness. When asked "Does philosophy contribute to happiness?"

Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by nature enemies.

Love truth, but pardon error.