George Gurdjieff Quotes

Freedom is from within.

Who then is free? The wise man who can command himself.

Freedom is internal. Another group cannot give you freedom.

Liberty is the prevention of control by others. This requires self-control and, therefore, religious and spiritual influences; education, knowledge, well-being.

The man of control lives in choice, and the man of understanding lives in choicelessness.

The disciplined are free.

No one is free who has not obtained the empire of himself.

Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self.

Freedom begins as we become conscious of it.

The wise man should restrain his senses like the crane and accomplish his purpose with due knowledge of his place, time and ability.

The ego is there, but I'm learning to channel it.

A little kingdom I possess, where thoughts and feelings dwell; And very hard the task I find of governing it well.

You can learn not to want what you want, to recognize desires but not be controlled by them.

The man who has no inner-life is a slave to his surroundings.

No one is free who does not lord over himself.

A well-governed appetite is the greater part of liberty.

Those who have succeeded in attaching or detaching their minds at will have succeeded in Pratyahara, which means gathering towards, checking the outgoing powers of the mind, freeing it from the thralldom of the senses. When we can do this, we shall really possess character; then alone we shall have taken a long step towards freedom. Before that, we are mere machines.

Only in the crucible of self-mastery can freedom be smelted

We are free when we are not the slave of our impulses, but rather their master. Taking inward distance, we thus become the authors of our own dramas rather than characters in them.

I thought The Limits of Control could be interpreted in two ways: as the limits of one's self-control; and as the limits of allowing other people's control over one's - consciousness - which I kind of thought was a double meaning that was appropriate.

A man who cannot command himself will always be a slave.

As far as your self-control goes, as far goes your freedom.

No man is free who is not master of himself... Is freedom anything else than the power of living as we choose?

Behind real freedom, there lies discipline.

The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free.