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
We often think we express negative emotions, not because we cannot help it, but because we should express them.
Interpretation
What this quote means
We feel compelled to express our negative emotions due to societal expectations rather than personal necessity.
This quote by P.D. Ouspensky suggests that individuals may express negative emotions not out of an uncontrollable impulse, but instead because they feel obliged to do so by social norms or pressures. It invites us to reflect on the authenticity of our emotional expressions and whether they truly represent our inner feelings or are simply a response to what we think is expected of us in certain situations.
Themes
Negative EmotionsExpressionSocietal NormsAuthenticityPsychology
In practice
Example use cases
During a group therapy session, this quote could be used to encourage participants to examine their emotional expressions.
More from P.D. Ouspensky
All quotes βI 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.
P.D. OuspenskyRead
Can one alter oneΒ΄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.
P.D. OuspenskyRead
People live in sleep, do everything in sleep, and do not know they are asleep.
P.D. OuspenskyRead
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.
P.D. OuspenskyRead
When a man begins to know himself a little he will see in himself many things that are bound to horrify him. So long as a man is not horrified at himself he knows nothing about himself.
P.D. OuspenskyRead
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