Quotes About Insight

What was that line of Sophocles from Oedipus Rex? "How awful a knowledge of the truth can be.

Most detection is simple.

In keeping with the methodical scientist he was, he had been jotting daily notes on his work. But underneath the entry for May 5, he had written two words only: HOLY SHIT!

Jennie taught me just how worthless that is. Being smart. Jennie wasn't smart by human standards, but she had a set of values. Real values. You see, for Jennie, freedom was the highest value. Language gave Jennie freedom. Although I didn't know it at the time, she taught me the real meaning of the word "freedom," not the bullshit meaning you get from politicians and priests.

Most people, in my experience, are a little thick. If not abundantly so.

You could tell a lot about a person by meeting his brother.

He reminds me of Paul Revere's ride," the waitress said from behind the counter. "A little light in the belfry.

Information is like electricity; it powers the light that allows us to see our way forward.

Poems are like dreams: in them you put what you don't know you know.

Until we know the assumptions in which we are drenched, we cannot know ourselves.

Again, the only way to know that we've seen into the true nature of something is that the story we're telling ourselves releases.

Meditation is like an oven that forces the truth out.

Questioner: What's the best thing I can do for my awakening? Adyashanti: Be with an enlightened teacher and listen.

Looking at personal issues is like pulling just the top of the weeds out of your lawn: they pop right back up. You may have some relief from the trouble of the day, but the root is still there, totally untouched. But having experiences, even if they clear up problems or offer beautiful insights, is very different than finding the root of who you are. If you don't get to the root, you just get another weed.

Spiritual people always think the Truth is hidden from them. It is not hidden. What gets in the way is the idea of what it is going to be.

I didn't make the calling happen, I couldn't pretend it didn't happen, and I couldn't have turned it off even if I'd wanted to. It was disconcerting. And sure enough, my intuition was true: the entire trajectory of my life had changed at that instant.

It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish.

Wisdom comes through suffering.

Wisdom comes only through suffering.

Wisdom to learn is e'en for old men good.

Truly even he errs that is wiser than the wise.

Justice turns the scale, bringing to some learning through suffering.

It is best for the wise man not to seem wise.

By Time and Age full many things are taught.