P. D. Ouspensky
Russian esotericist, philosopher, and chief literary heir of G. I. Gurdjieff — the man whose 1949 In Search of the Miraculous became the canonical written record of Gurdjieff's oral teaching of the Fourth Way, and whose own books Tertium Organum (1912), A New Model of the Universe (1931), and The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution (1950) developed an independent line of esoteric philosophy alongside the Work. Born 1878 in Moscow, Ouspensky encountered Gurdjieff in 1915, worked closely with him until their split in 1924, then taught his own groups in London for the rest of his life. He died in 1947, two years before In Search of the Miraculous was published. Through that book — and through his pupils, who include Maurice Nicoll, Rodney Collin, and Lord Pentland — Ouspensky became one of the principal channels through which Fourth Way teaching reached the English-speaking world.
115
quotes in library
Quotes by P. D. Ouspensky
115 quotes“You cease to remember yourself.”
identificationThe Fourth Way
“You become a part of the thing you are identified with.”
identificationThe Fourth Way
“In ordinary life, man is identified with everything: thoughts, emotions, sensations, desires, antipathies.”
identificationThe Fourth Way
“There is nothing he is not identified with.”
identificationThe Fourth Way
“Therefore he has no real self.”
selfThe Fourth Way
“To recover the self, identification must be observed and gradually weakened.”
selfThe Fourth Way
“This is one of the central practices of the Work.”
practiceThe Fourth Way
“Negative emotions are the principal source of the loss of energy.”
emotionsThe Fourth Way
“They consume an enormous amount of force without giving anything in return.”
emotionsThe Fourth Way
“To free oneself from negative emotions is one of the great aims of the Work.”
emotionsThe Fourth Way
“Not by suppression. By understanding.”
suppressionThe Fourth Way
“By seeing them clearly, their grip loosens.”
seeingThe Fourth Way
“Conscience is the higher feeling of moral truth.”
conscienceConscience: The Search for Truth
“It is buried beneath conventional morality and social training.”
conscienceConscience
“To uncover it is part of the Work.”
conscienceConscience
“When conscience awakens, you cannot ignore it.”
conscienceConscience
“It points to a different way of being than ordinary morality.”
conscienceConscience
“It is the inner moral law of the awakened person.”
conscienceConscience
“There can be no real understanding without effort.”
understandingIn Search of the Miraculous
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