A Quote by David W. Marsden

People have this kind of concept that they can't change but I feel like change is possible. So who you choose to be is who you are and who you will be. I think that you can be enlightened in many different ways and if you choose to be enlightened and are someone who seeks out those things then you can be that and you will be that. If you want to be enlightened you will be enlightened. If you want to be an asshole you will be an asshole. But the greater scope of this statement is if you look at the history of humans, really, nothing has changed.

David W. Marsden

Quote Topics

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Quote Author

David W. Marsden
Born: April 5, 1948

I have always regarded nonalignment as a statement that India's policies - foreign policy - will be guided by what I describe as 'enlightened national interest.' That means we will make judgments on an independent basis with the sole concern being what is enlightened India's national interest.

Manmohan Singh

It is vain to say that enlightened statesmen will always be able to adjust their interests. Enlightened men will not always be at the helm.

James Madison

Very few people become enlightened in any given lifetime. On the planet earth their might be a dozen who are fully enlightened and several thousand who live in enlightened states of mind.

Frederick Lenz

I have always regard nonalignment as a statement that India's policies, foreign policy will be guided by what I describe as enlightened national interest. That we will make judgments on an independent basis, with the sole concern being what is enlightened India's national interest. In that sense, nonalignment remains as relevant today as it was in the early 1950s.

Manmohan Singh

Celibacy doesn't make you enlightened, otherwise every nun or priest in Buddhism or Christianity would be enlightened. People who don't date and can't get any action would be enlightened.

Frederick Lenz

I don't think you automatically become an enlightened person because you are a daddy. But they will change you, of course - their understanding of you puts you in a different place.

John Hurt

Bodhisattva is enlightened in the Buddhist philosophy, religion, tradition. He's enlightened. It's fine - I don't really fight it - but many people use the term 'zen' and terms like 'nirvana,' 'enlightenment' in an almost superficial way. It's not that complicated.

Edgar Ramirez

The difference between you, if you consider yourself not enlightened, and an enlightened master is not that the enlightened master has more knowledge. University professors have knowledge, and many enlightened masters have very little knowledge. Jesus probably had less knowledge than any university professor alive today in terms of raw information. Even a relatively uneducated person has more information than Jesus or Buddha ever had about things, such as political things and so on.

Eckhart Tolle

It is not special to be enlightened, just different. An enlightened person is someone who has dedicated not just this lifetime but thousands of lifetimes to becoming awareness.

Frederick Lenz

Enlightened legislation or enlightened social activity of whatever kind, does play into the hands of people with agendas of their own. If you legalize euthanasia, you provide a field day for people who like killing other people.

J. G. Ballard

I came to California in 1970 and so many people were asking if I was a Buddhist or knew Zen theory, asking if I was enlightened already or not. So I said, "Yes, I am enlightened," and then I studied quickly to catch up.

Hiroshi Sugimoto

There's a Buddhist story about the guy who wants to be enlightened, and then he gets a cow and a wife and a child, and all these things get in the way of his enlightenment. So, yeah, I have no chance of being enlightened.

Larkin Grimm

No one on this earth attains enlightenment anymore without an enlightened master as a guide, unless that person was enlightened in many previous incarnations.

Frederick Lenz

There might be greater technology but really, we as human beings, we're the same as we ever were. There's always a ruling class that shits on a working class. There's always war over money. So we as humans aren't enlightened as a whole. So I think that you as an individual can progress under certain circumstances, so if you choose to be something and to try and learn and to try and progress then eventually it will happen but that is also who you are. You can make conscious decisions to try and do something positive or constructive but you are what you are.

David W. Marsden

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you.