Quotes from Jiddu Krishnamurti

As long as the mind is in conflict-blaming, resisting, condemning-there can be no understanding. If I want to understand you, I must not condemn you, obviously.

To seek fulfillment is to invite frustration.

Discipline does not mean suppression and control, nor is it adjustment to a pattern or ideology. It means a mind that sees 'what is' and learns from 'what was'.

All outward forms of change brought about by wars, revolutions, reformations, laws and ideologies have failed completely to change the basic nature of man and therefore of society.

War is a stage brought about by the standardizing of thought, revolt, and life - not by the freedom of life, not by the revolt of life.

You must be a light unto yourself.

Knowledge is an addiction, as drink; knowledge does not bring understanding. Knowledge can be taught, but not wisdom; there must be freedom from knowledge for the coming of wisdom.

The difference between me and you is... that I don't mind what happens.

We shall quench our thirst, for we shall drink deep at the bubbling fountain of Wisdom.

Not to know is the beginning of wisdom.

Fear is the destructive energy in man. It withers the mind, it distorts thought, it leads to all kinds of extraordinarily clever and subtle theories, absurd superstitions, dogmas, and beliefs.

You cannot prevent a man getting drunk if he wishes to do so, but when he becomes a nuisance, then you interfere.

When I understand myself, I understand you, and out of that understanding comes love.

Life cannot be without relationship, but we have made it so agonizing and hideous by basing it on personal and possessive love. Can one love and yet not possess? You will find the true answer not in escape, ideals, beliefs but through the understanding of the causes of dependence and possessiveness.

Meditation demands an astonishingly alert mind; it is the understanding of the totality of life in which every form of fragmentation has ceased.

Fear exists in the process of accumulation and belief in something is part of the accumulative process.

Again, I maintain that no organization can lead man to spirituality.

If there is no meditation, then you are like a blind man in a world of great beauty, light and colour.

The man who lives without conflict, who lives with beauty and love, is not frightened of death because to love is to die.

In seeking comfort, we generally find a quiet corner in life where there is a minimum of conflict, and then we are afraid to step out of that seclusion.

If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice; you are listening to your own desires.

I want to do a certain thing in the world, and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies.

People must work things out for themselves. It is no good saying, "I have found a house which suits me and therefore everybody must adopt the same kind of house."

Love is the missing factor; there is a lack of affection, of warmth in relationship; and because we lack that love, that tenderness, that generosity, that mercy in relationship, we escape into mass action, which produces further confusion, further misery.