If you want to remember yourself, the best thing is not to think about yourself. As long as you think about yourself, you will not remember yourself.
P.D. OuspenskyRead
I mean that you always know what results will come from one or another of your actions; but in a strange way you want to do one thing and get the result that could only come from another
Interpretation
The quote reflects the conflict between our desires and the consequences of our actions.
P.D. Ouspensky's quote highlights the paradox of human behavior where individuals often pursue actions driven by their desires, yet simultaneously expect outcomes that are incongruent with those actions. This tension points to a deeper understanding of human nature, suggesting that we may not fully grasp the consequences of our choices or the complexity of our motivations, leading to a disconnect between intentions and results.
In practice
In a motivational speech about decision-making, one might use this quote to illustrate the importance of aligning actions with desired outcomes.
If you want to remember yourself, the best thing is not to think about yourself. As long as you think about yourself, you will not remember yourself.
I have become so accustomed to think "scientifically" that I am afraid even to imagine that there may be something else beyond the outer covering of life. I feel like a man condemned to death, whose companions have been hanged and who has already become reconciled to the thought that the same fate awaits him.
Can one alter one´s chief feature?" asked someone else. First it is necessary to know it. If you know it, much will depend on the quality of your knowing. If you know it well, then it is possible to change it.
People live in sleep, do everything in sleep, and do not know they are asleep.
We often think we express negative emotions, not because we cannot help it, but because we should express them.
You can understand other people only as much as you understand yourself and only on the level of your own being. This means you can judge other people's knowledge but you cannot judge their being. You can see in them only as much as you have in yourself. But people always make the mistake of thinking they can judge other people's being. In reality, if they wish to meet and understand people of a higher development than themselves they must work with the aim of changing their being.
Armaments, universal debt and planned obsolescence - those are the three pillars of Western prosperity.
Don't you think I have sense enough to worry about my motives for saying the prayer? That's exactly what's bothering me so. Just because I'm choosy about what I want - in this case, enlightenment or peace, instead or money or prestige or game or any of those things, doesn't mean I'm not as egotistical and self-seeking as everybody else. If anything, I'm more so!
One discovers that destiny can be diverted, that one does not have to remain in bondage to the first wax imprint made on childhood sensibilities. Once the deforming mirror has been smashed, there is a possibility of wholeness. There is a possibility of joy.
Our forms of government - though both cast in the democratic pattern - are greatly different. Indeed, sometimes it appears that many of our misunderstandings spring from an imperfect knowledge on the part of both of us of the dissimilarities in our forms of government.
Truly, that reason upon which we plume ourselves, though it may answer for little things, yet for great decisions is hardly surer than a toss up.
It became clear over time that white people have extremely low thresholds for enduring any discomfort associated with challenges to our racial worldviews.
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