Skip to content

I've found that the chief difficulty for most people was to realize that they had really heard new things: that is things that they had never heard before. They kept translating what they heard into their habitual language. They had ceased to hope and believe there might be anything new.

— P. D. Ouspensky The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution (1950)

Another quote →

More quotes by P. D. Ouspensky

Generally speaking, the significance of the indirect results may very often be of more importance than the significance of direct ones.

Tertium Organum (1922)

Knowledge must start from some foundation, something must be recognized as known; otherwise we shall be obliged always to define one unknown by means of another.

Tertium Organum (1912)

In all living nature (and perhaps also in that which we consider as dead) love is the motive force which drives the creative activity in the most diverse directions.

Tertium Organum (1922)

People who think they can control their negative emotions and manifest them when they want to, simply deceive themselves.

The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution (1950)

Existing criminology is insufficient to isolate barbarism.

A New Model of the Universe (1932)

All P. D. Ouspensky quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: P. D. Ouspensky (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.