Top 681 Quotes & Sayings by Jiddu Krishnamurti - Page 5

Most of us are frightened of dying because we don't know what it meant to live.We don't know how to live,therefore we don't know how to die

The only freedom is the freedom from the known.

Happiness comes uninvited: and the moment that you are conscious that you are happy, you are no longer happy.

The guru cannot awaken you; all that he can do is to point out what is.

It is astonishingly beautiful and interesting, how thought is absent when you have an insight. Thought cannot have an insight.

As we are concerned with what others think of us, so we are anxious to know all about them; and from this arise the crude and subtle forms of snobbishness and the worship of authority. Thus we become more and more externalized and inwardly empty. The more externalized we are, the more sensations and distractions there must be, and this gives rise to a mind that is never quiet, that is not capable of deep search and discovery.

Only the free mind knows what Love is.

Contentment is not happiness. Contentment is stagnation and decay, whereas happiness is life and growth.

To keep always in the same place means to stagnate.

Now, when you are aware, you see the whole process of your thinking and action, but it can happen only when there is no condemnation. That is. When I condemn something, I do not understand it.

Do it or don't do it but get on with it.

There is an efficiency inspired by love which goes far beyond and is much greater than the efficiency of ambition; and without love, which brings an integrated understanding of life, efficiency breeds ruthlessness.

In our relationship with children and young people, we are not dealing with mechanical devices that can be quickly repaired, but with living beings who are impressionable, volatile, sensitive, afraid, affectionate; and to deal with them we have to have great understanding, the strength of patience and love.

In awareness there is no becoming, there is no end to be gained. There is silent observation without choice and condemnation, from which there comes understanding.

Clever people, people who are cunning, do not know what love is because their minds are so sharp, because they are so clever, because they are so superficial - which means to be on the surface, and love is not a thing that exists on the surface.

Discipline is necessary to curb the mind, otherwise there is no peace.

If people who say they love their children meant it, would there be war? And would there be division of nationalities - would there be these separations?

The earth doesn't belong to anyone. It is the land upon which all of us are to live for many years, ploughing, reaping and destroying. You are always a guest on this earth and have the austerity of a guest. Austerity is far deeper than owning only a few things. The very word austerity has been spoilt by the monks, by the sannyasis, by the hermits. Sitting on that high hill alone in the solitude of many things, many rocks and little animals and ants, that word has no meaning.

The more you know yourself, the more clarity there is.

To understand oneself requires patience, tolerant awareness; the self is a book of many volumes which you cannot read in a day, but when once you begin to read, you must read every word, every sentence, every paragraph for in them are the intimations of the whole. The beginning of it is the ending of it. If you know how to read, supreme wisdom is to be found.

It is utterly and irrevocably possible to empty all hurts and therefore to love, to have compassion. To have compassion means to have passion for all things, not just between two people, but for all human beings, for all things of the earth, the animals, the trees - everything the earth contains. When we have such compassion we will not despoil the earth as we are doing now and we will have no wars.

A man who says, 'I want to change, tell me how to', seems very earnest, very serious, but he is not. He wants an authority whom he hopes will bring about order in himself. But can authority ever bring about inward order? Order imposed from without must always breed disorder.

Goodness is not in the backyard of the individual nor in the open field of the collective; goodness flowers only in freedom from both.

Only the mind that has emptied itself of the known is creative. That is creation. What it creates has nothing to do with it. Freedom from the known is the state of a mind that is in creation.

From innumerable complexities we must grow to simplicity; we must become simple in our inward life and in our outward needs.

Can another help bring about a transformation in you? If he can, you are not transformed; you are merely dominated, influenced.

You may repeat the most marvelous poems. And that is not worth a cent if you don't live it.

The man who is not frightened of life is not frightened of being completely insecure for he understands that inwardly, psychologically, there is no security.....When there is no security there is an endless movement and then life and death are the same....The man who lives without conflict, who lives with beauty and love, is not frightened of death because to love is to die.

Living in the present is the instant perception of beauty and the great delight in it without seeking pleasure from it.

What brings understanding is love. When your heart is full, then you will listen to the teacher, to the beggar, to the laughter of children, to the rainbow, and to the sorrow of man. Under every stone and leaf, that which is eternal exists.

I am all for changing, even if mistakes are made in the process. Mistakes do not matter.

It is very difficult to be like the other guy, to be ordinary. Mediocrity takes a great deal of energy. But to be ourselves is very easy. You don't have to do a thing.

Sentimentality and emotionalism have nothing whatsoever to do with love.

A mind that practices love cannot love.

It is only the dull, sleepy mind that creates and clings to habit. A mind that is attentive from moment to moment - attentive to what it is saying, attentive to the movement of its hands, of its thoughts, of its feelings - will discover that the formation of further habits has come to an end.

We demand to be coaxed and comforted, to be encouraged and gratified, so we choose a teacher who will give us what we crave for. We do not search out reality, but go after gratification and sensation.

You haven't changed. You may say: 'I'm full of love, I'm full of truth, I'm full of knowledge, I'm full of wisdom.' I say: 'That's all nonsense. Do you behave? Are you free of fear? Are you free of ambition, greed, envy and the desire to achieve success in every field? If not, you are just playing a game. You are not serious.'

It is only in a very quiet mind that great things are born; and a quiet mind does not come about through effort, through control, through discipline.

If you lose touch with nature you lose touch with humanity. If there's no relationship with nature then you become a killer; then you kill baby seals, whales, dolphins, and man either for gain, for "sport," for food, or for knowledge. Then nature is frightened of you, withdrawing its beauty. You may take long walks in the woods or camp in lovely places but you are a killer and so lose their friendship. You probably are not related to anything to your wife or your husband.

Is there a thinker apart from thought?

Are you aware of the significance of every thought, of every reaction that you happen to have?

Learning is the very essence of humility . . .

Any acceptance of authority is the very denial of truth.

If I do not know reality, the unknown, how can I search for it? Surely it must come but I cannot go after it. If I go after it I am going after something which is the known, projected by me; by my own mind.

There is not first understanding and then action. When you understand, that very understanding is action.

Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not a choice. . Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and activity.

It is raining and you can hear the pattern of the drops. You can hear it with your ears, or you can hear it out of that deep silence. If you hear it with complete silence of the mind, then the beauty of it is such that cannot be put into words or onto canvas, because that beauty is something beyond self-expression .

Do not repeat after me words that you do not understand. Do not merely put on a mask of my ideas, for it will be an illusion and you will thereby deceive yourself.

You must look most intimately and discover for yourself; then it is your own, not somebody else’s, not something that you have been told, because there is no teacher and no follower.

Though we are all human beings, we have built walls between ourselves and our neighbors through nationalism, through race, caste, and class - which again breeds isolation, loneliness.

When you say that I have followers, let me assure you that I do not want followers, nor would I ever encourage the idea of following.

Where there is love, there is revolution, because love is transformation from moment to moment.

Does choice exist when I see something very clearly?

When all authority of every kind is put aside, denied, then you can find out for yourself.

When the mind goes beyond the thought of 'the me,' the experiencer, the observer, the thinker, then there is a possibility of a happiness that is incorruptible.

Surely, life is not merely a job, an occupation; life is something extraordinarily wide and profound, it is a great mystery, a vast realm in which we function as human beings.

The fact is one thing and the idea about the fact is another.

To seek fulfillment is to invite frustration.

It is intelligence that brings order, not discipline.

Conflict is not in the feeling of being in love. The feeling of being in love is utterly without conflict. There is no loss of energy in being in love.