126 Inspiring Enlightenment Quotes

In a world that often feels fast-paced and overwhelming, turning to the wisdom of the past can provide a grounding sense of clarity and inspiration. The Enlightenment era, known for its remarkable burst of intellectual and philosophical growth, has left behind a wealth of thought-provoking insights that remain relevant today. This curated collection of 126 inspiring Enlightenment quotes offers a window into the minds of some of history’s greatest thinkers. Whether you're seeking personal motivation, a deeper understanding of life, or simply a moment of reflection, these quotes promise to illuminate your path with timeless wisdom. Dive into these enlightening words and discover the transformative power they hold.

1. “Noi tutti siamo esiliatientro lo cornici di uno strano quadro.Chi sa questo, viva da grande,Gli altri sono insetti.” - Leonardo da Vinci

2. “Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,The proper study of mankind is Man.Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,A being darkly wise and rudely great:With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest;In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast;In doubt his mind or body to prefer;Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;Alike in ignorance, his reason such,Whether he thinks too little or too much;Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;Still by himself abused or disabused;Created half to rise, and half to fall;Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd;The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides,Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,Correct old time, and regulate the sun;Go, soar with Plato to th’ empyreal sphere,To the first good, first perfect, and first fair;Or tread the mazy round his followers trod,And quitting sense call imitating God;As Eastern priests in giddy circles run,And turn their heads to imitate the sun.Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule—Then drop into thyself, and be a fool!” - Alexander Pope

3. “Art is unquestionably one of the purest and highest elements in human happiness. It trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the mind. As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life.” - John Lubbock

4. “Dream Song of Thunders:Sometimes I go about pitying Myself, While I am carried by the wind Across the sky. ” - Frances Densmore

5. “Everything transitory is but an image.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

6. “According to Vedanta, there are only two symptoms of enlightenment, just two indications that a transformation is taking place within you toward a higher consciousness. The first symptom is that you stop worrying. Things don't bother you anymore. You become light-hearted and full of joy. The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life, more and more synchronicities. And this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous. (quoted by Carol Lynn Pearson in Consider the Butterfly)” - Deepak Chopra

7. “Within each of us is a light, awake, encoded in the fibers of our existence. Divine ecstasy is the totality of this marvelous creation experienced in the hearts of humanity” - Tony Samara

8. “One thing: you have to walk, and create the way by your walking; you will not find a ready-made path. It is not so cheap, to reach to the ultimate realization of truth. You will have to create the path by walking yourself; the path is not ready-made, lying there and waiting for you. It is just like the sky: the birds fly, but they don't leave any footprints. You cannot follow them; there are no footprints left behind.” - Osho

9. “Live simply. Deepest joy is like a flower....beautiful in essence.” - Tony Samara

10. “What can oppose the decline of the west is not a resurrected culture but the utopia that is silently contained in the image of its decline.” - theodor w. adorno

11. “Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! 'Have courage to use your own reason!'- that is the motto of enlightenment.” - Immanuel Kant

12. “It is not easy to convey, unless one has experienced it, the dramatic feeling of sudden enlightenment that floods the mind when the right idea finally clicks into place. One immediately sees how many previously puzzling facts are neatly explained by the new hypothesis. One could kick oneself for not having the idea earlier, it now seems so obvious. Yet before, everything was in a fog.” - Francis Crick

13. “It’s ever been the way of the man of science or philosophy. Most folks stay in the dark and then complain they can’t see nothing.” – Snipes (185)” - Ron Rash

14. “Every day Zuigan used to call out to himself, "Master!" and then he answered himself, "Yes, Sir!" And he added, "Awake, Awake!" and then answered, "Yes, Sir! Yes, Sir!""From now onwards, do not be deceived by others!" "No, Sir! I will not, Sir!"” - Mumon

15. “When the stories of our life no longer bind us, we discover within them something greater. We discover that within the very limitations of form, of our maleness and femaleness, of our parenthood and our childhood, of gravity on the earth and the changing of the seasons, is the freedom and harmony we have sought for so long. Our individual life is an expression of the whole mystery, and in it we can rest in the center of the movement, the center of all worlds.” - Jack Kornfield

16. “...the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whaterver form. Both are illusions.” - Eckhart Tolle

17. “It isn't by getting out of the world that we become enlightened, but by getting into the world…by getting so tuned in that we can ride the waves of our existence and never get tossed because we become the waves.” - Ken Kesey

18. “Enlightenment must come little by little - otherwise it would overwhelm.” - Idries Shah

19. “The Stone of Guilt in the River of the Mind, the block in the flow of intelligence.~ Paramahamsa Nithyananda” - Paramahamsa Nithyananda

20. “All descriptions of reality are temporary hypotheses.” - Siddhārtha Gautama

21. “But to unite in a permanent religious institution which is not to be subject to doubt before the public even in the lifetime of one man, and thereby to make a period of time fruitless in the progress of mankind toward improvement, thus working to the disadvantage of posterity - that is absolutely forbidden. For himself (and only for a short time) a man may postpone enlightenment in what he ought to know, but to renounce it for posterity is to injure and trample on the rights of mankind.” - Immanuel Kant

22. “The road to enlightenment is long and difficult, and you should try not to forget snacks and magazines.” - Anne Lamott

23. “Total Enlightenment is 'Vision without Purpose'.” - Stanley Victor Paskavich

24. “The best way to obtain truth and wisdom is not to ask from books, but to go to God in prayer, and obtain divine teaching.” - Joseph Smith Jr.

25. “Jessica. For god's sake," he said. "Allow me to do at least one common courtesy for you. In spite ow what 'women's lib' teaches you, chivalry does not imply that women are powerless. On the contrary, chivalry is an admission of women's superiority. An acknowledgment of your power over us. This is the only form of servitude a Vladescu ever practices, and I perform it gladly for you. You, in turn, are obligated to accept graciously.” - Beth Fantaskey

26. “If there is one ruler that can harmonize and unify the mob of characters [in our astral body], it is the Ego (the Higher Ego, or Self, or Spirit). The more the Ego shines like a sun at the center of gravity of the astral body, the more the different characters start orbiting around it. Instead of working only to satisfy their own selfish desires, the characters start manifesting the purposes of the light and of the Spirit. Instead of plotting for the success of their own ambitions, they start accomplishing the works of the Higher Self... The unveiling of the Self begins a process of unification--a new astral body slowly develops. In this new, or transformed, astral body, the different parts are penetrated by the light of the Self. Therefore they are not only united around the Self, but are also cemented to it... [Before this process], one is nothing more than an appearance: it is the illusion of being one person...” - Samuel Sagan

27. “It is neither cowardice nor betrayal to insist that the Enlightenment's main lesson is to be mindful of how much it has left its inheritors to figure out.” - Samuel Moyn

28. “Israel's monomaniacal Spinoza worship is amusing and exasperating by turns. For a start, his insistence that Spinoza was the singular font of the Enlightenment leaves him without a story of the Enlightenment's intellectual or cultural origins. Every historian has to begin somewhere, but the fact that Israel begins with Spinoza, and then reduces most of what follows the philosopher to a footnote, leaves his account of the Enlightenment founded on something like immaculate conception.” - Samuel Moyn

29. “When the Washington Post telephoned me at home on Valentine's Day 1989 to ask my opinion about the Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwah, I felt at once that here was something that completely committed me. It was, if I can phrase it like this, a matter of everything I hated versus everything I loved. In the hate column: dictatorship, religion, stupidity, demagogy, censorship, bullying, and intimidation. In the love column: literature, irony, humor, the individual, and the defense of free expression. Plus, of course, friendship—though I like to think that my reaction would have been the same if I hadn't known Salman at all. To re-state the premise of the argument again: the theocratic head of a foreign despotism offers money in his own name in order to suborn the murder of a civilian citizen of another country, for the offense of writing a work of fiction. No more root-and-branch challenge to the values of the Enlightenment (on the bicentennial of the fall of the Bastille) or to the First Amendment to the Constitution, could be imagined. President George H.W. Bush, when asked to comment, could only say grudgingly that, as far as he could see, no American interests were involved…” - Christopher Hitchens

30. “I used to think that once you really knew a thing, its truth would shine on forever. Now it's pretty obvious to me that more often than not the batteries fade, and sometimes what you knew even goes out with a bang when you try and call on it, just like a light bulb cracking off when you throw the switch.” - Lucy Grealy

31. “We owe a huge debt to Galileo for emancipating us all from the stupid belief in an Earth-centered or man-centered (let alone God-centered) system. He quite literally taught us our place and allowed us to go on to make extraordinary advances in knowledge.” - Christopher Hitchens

32. “HELLO! Look at me. HELLO! I am so ZEN. This is BLOOD. This is NOTHING. Hello. Everything is nothing, and it's so cool to be ENLIGHTENED. Like me.” - Chuck Palahniuk

33. “Everybody is seeking to reach higher self but hardly anyone reaches.” - Santosh Kalwar

34. “Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen.” - Bodhidharma

35. “But people of the deepest understanding look within, distracted by nothing. Since a clear mind is the Buddha, they attain the understanding of a Buddha without using the mind.” - Bodhidharma

36. “Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate.” - Huang Po

37. “To be taught to read—what is the use of that, if you know not whether what you read is false or true? To be taught to write or to speak—but what is the use of speaking, if you have nothing to say? To be taught to think—nay, what is the use of being able to think, if you have nothing to think of? But to be taught to see is to gain word and thought at once, and both true.” - John Ruskin

38. “I'm simply saying that there is a way to be sane. I'm saying that you can get rid of all this insanity created by the past in you. Just by being a simple witness of your thought processes. It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts, passing before you. Just witnessing, not interfering not even judging, because the moment you judge you have lost the pure witness. The moment you say “this is good, this is bad,” you have already jumped onto the thought process. It takes a little time to create a gap between the witness and the mind. Once the gap is there, you are in for a great surprise, that you are not the mind, that you are the witness, a watcher. And this process of watching is the very alchemy of real religion. Because as you become more and more deeply rooted in witnessing, thoughts start disappearing. You are, but the mind is utterly empty.That’s the moment of enlightenment. That is the moment that you become for the first time an unconditioned, sane, really free human being.” - Osho

39. “Enlightenment will be now the beginning, not the end. Beginning of a non-ending process in all dimensions of richness. ” - Osho

40. “I feel that the essence of dance is the expression of man--the landscape of his soul. I hope that every dance I do reveals something of myself or some wonderful thing a human can be.” - Martha Graham

41. “We are searching for the core of our lives; our culture intuits that writing, that ancient activity, might be the pathway...Awakening does not feed ego's needs and desires; it pulverizes the self. Our society couldn't knowingly bear such reduction, so we've tricked ourselves into the same path but call it writing.” - Natalie Goldberg

42. “Nobody makes anybody enlightened.Just tell them what you want to say,then let them decide for themselves.” - Toba Beta

43. “The sinister, the terrible never deceive: the state in which they leave us is always one of enlightenment. And only this condition of vicious insight allows us a full grasp of the world, all things considered, just as a frigid melancholy grants us full possession of ourselves. We may hide from horror only in the heart of horror. (“The Medusa”)” - Thomas Ligotti

44. “Just remember this, my girl, when you look up in the sky you can see the stars and still not see the light.” - Jack Tempchin

45. “How could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?” - Plato

46. “It is significant comment on the victory of science over magic that were someone to say ‘if I put this pill in your beer it will explode,’ we might believe them; but were they to cry ‘if I pronounce this spell over your beer it will go flat,’ we should remain incredulous and Paracelsus, the Alchemists, Aleister Crowley and all the Magi have lived in vain. Yet when I read science I turn magical; when I study magic, scientific.” - Cyril Connolly

47. “The bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp.” - John Berry

48. “There are those who know and those who don't know. And for every ten thousand who don't know there's only one who knows. That's the miracle of all time--the fact that these millions know so much but don't know this.” - Carson McCullers

49. “Bringing to light what had been hidden in darkness should not overwhelm you, but EDUCATE you.” - Solange nicole

50. “As in music, when we hear the crescendo building, suddenly if the music stops, we begin to hear the silence as part of the music.” - CHOGYAM TRUNGPA

51. “We do not have to be ashamed of what we are. As sentient beings we have wonderful backgrounds. These backgrounds may not be particularly enlightened or peaceful or intelligent. Nevertheless, we have soil good enough to cultivate; we can plant anything in it.” - CHOGYAM TRUNGPA

52. “To live is not to breathe but to act. It is to make use of our organs, our senses, our faculties, of all the parts of ourselves which give us the sentiment of our existence. The man who has lived the most is not he who has counted the most years but he who has most felt life.” - Jean Jacques Rousseau

53. “He suddenly understood the message of so many spiritual teachers that the only revolution that can work is the inner transformation of every human being.” - Stanislav Grof

54. “...new prejudices will serve as well as old ones to harness the great unthinking masses.For this enlightenment, however, nothing is required but freedom, and indeed the most harmless among all the things to which this term can properly be applied. It is the freedom to make public use of one's reason at every point. But I hear on all sides, 'Do not argue!' The Officer says: 'Do not argue but drill!' The tax collector: 'Do not argue but pay!' The cleric: 'Do not argue but believe!' Only one prince in the world says, 'Argue as much as you will, and about what you will, but obey!' Everywhere there is restriction on freedom.” - Immanuel Kant

55. “When it shall be desired to enlighten man, let him always have truth laid before him. Instead of kindling his imagination by the idea of those pretended goods that a future state has in reserve for him, let him be solaced, let him be succoured; or, at least, let him be permitted to enjoy the fruit of his labour; let not his substance be ravaged from him by cruel imposts; let him not be discouraged from work, by finding all his labour inadequate to support his existence, let him not be driven into that idleness that will surely lead him on to crime: let him consider his present existence, without carrying his views to that which may attend him after his death: let his industry be excited; let his talents be rewarded; let him be rendered active, laborious, beneficent, and virtuous, in the world he inhabits; let it be shown to him that his actions are capable of having an influence over his fellow men, but not on those imaginary beings located in an ideal world.” - Baron d'Holbach

56. “Philosophy cannot be extinguished, though men will try ... The spirit seeks the light, that is its nature. It wishes to return to its origin, and must forever try to reach enlightenment.” - Iain Pears

57. “[Men] prefer the foolish belief and the passions of the earth [to the enlightenment of their souls]. They believe the absurd and shrink from the truth.""No, they do not. They are afraid, that is all. And they must remain on earth until they come to the way of leaving it.""And how do they leave? How is the ascent made? Must one learn virtue?"Here she laughs. "You have read too much, and learned too little. Virtue is a road, not a destination. Man cannot be virtuous. Understanding is the goal. When that is achieved, the soul can take wing.” - Iain Pears

58. “You only learn when you give your whole being to something. When you give your whole being to mathematics,you learn; but when you are in a state of contradiction, when you do not want to learn but are forced to learn, then it becomes merely a process of accumulation. To learn is like reading a novel with innumerable characters; it requires your full attention, not contradictory attention.” - Jiddu Krishnamurti

59. “We think a wise person is someone who solves problems. Truth is, a wise person is someone who avoids problems.” - Prem Rawat

60. “The degree to which your Consciousness expands, is the degree to which you understand yourself and the universe.” - Gina Charles

61. “It is certain that such a revolution in thought - that is, such an expansion of consciousness, such an evolution of intelligence - is not the result of a whim. It is in fact a question of a cosmic influence to which the earth, along with everything in it, is subjected. A phase in the gestation of the planetary particle of our solar system is completed. Gaston Bachelard observes, in this connection, what he calls “a mutation of Spirit.” A new period must begin, and this is heralded by seismic movement, climate changes, and finally, above all, by the spirit that animates man.” - Schwaller de Lubicz

62. “Kant is sometimes considered to be an advocate of reason. Kant was in favor of science, it is argued. He emphasized the importance of rational consistency in ethics. He posited regulative principles of reason to guide our thinking, even our thinking about religion. And he resisted the ravings of Johann Hamann and the relativism of Johann Herder. Thus, the argument runs, Kant should be placed in the pantheon of Enlightenment greats. That is a mistake. The fundamental question of reason is its relationship to reality. Is reason capable of knowing reality - or is it not? Is our rational faculty a cognitive function, taking its material form reality, understanding the significance of that material, and using that understanding to guide our actions in reality - or is it not? This is the question that divides philosophers into pro- and anti-reason camps, this is the question that divides the rational gnostics and the skeptics, and this was Kant’s question in his Critique of Pure Reason. Kant was crystal clear about his answer. Reality - real, noumenal reality - is forever closed off to reason, and reason is limited to awareness and understanding of its own subjective products… Kant was the decisive break with the Enlightenment and the first major step toward postmodernism. Contrary to the Enlightenment account of reason, Kant held that the mind is not a response mechanism but a constitute mechanism. He held that the mind - and not reality - sets the terms for knowledge. And he held that reality conforms to reason, not vice versa. In the history of philosphy, Kant marks a fundamental shift from objectivity as the standard to subjectivity as the standard. What a minute, a defender of Kant may reply. Kant was hardly opposed to reason. After all, he favored rational consistency and he believed in universal principles. So what is anti-reason about it? The answer is that more fundamental to reason than consistency and universality is a connection to reality. Any thinker who concludes that in principle reason cannot know reality is not fundamentally an advocate of reason… Suppose a thinker argued the following: “I am an advocate of freedom for women. Options and the power to choose among them are crucial to our human dignity. And I am wholeheartedly an advocate of women’s human dignity. But we must understand that a scope of a women’s choice is confined to the kitchen. Beyond the kitchen’s door she must not attempt to exercise choice. Within the kitchen, however, she has a whole feast of choices[…]”. No one would mistake such a thinker for an advocate of women’s freedom. Anyone would point out that there is a whole world beyond the kitchen and that freedom is essentially about exercising choice about defining and creating one’s place in the world as a whole. The key point about Kant, to draw the analogy crudely, is that he prohibits knowledge of anything outside our skulls. The gives reasons lots to do withing the skull, and he does advocate a well-organized and tidy mind, but this hardly makes him a champion of reason… Kant did not take all of the steps down to postmodernism, but he did take the decisive one. Of the five major features of Enlightenment reason - objectivity, competence, autonomy, universality, and being an individual faculty - Kant rejected objectivity.” - Stephen R.C. Hicks

63. “Life sucks. Enlightenment is getting over it.” - Ari Clayera

64. “The difference between going where you are needed and going where you are called is purely based upon diligent prayer and the leading of the Holy Spirit.” - M.J. Stoddard

65. “Only through Absolution will you reach the Absolute.” - Toni Petrinovich

66. “Do little things every day that no one else seems to want to do, be patient, and success will find you.” - Brandi L. Bates

67. “Teach those only willing to listen and listen to those only willing to teach” - Justin Southwick

68. “Perhaps one day, all these conflicts will end, and it won't be because of great statesmen or churches or organisations like this one. It'll be because people have changed. They'll be like you, Puffin. More a mixture. So why not become a mongrel? It's healthy.” - Kazuo Ishiguro

69. “You can't expect anyone to trust revelation if he hasn't experienced it himself. Those who haven't only know reason. And since revelation is a thing apart, and cannot be accounted for reasonably, they never will believe you. This is the great division of the world and always has been. When reason and revelation run together, why, then you have something great, a great age.” - Mark Helprin

70. “Poetic justice, with her lifted scale,Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs,And solid pudding against empty praise. Here she beholds the chaos dark and deep,Where nameless somethings in their causes sleep,Till genial Jacob, or a warm third day,Call forth each mass, a poem, or a play:How hints, like spawn, scarce quick in embryo lie,How new-born nonsense first is taught to cry.” - Alexander Pope

71. “From a mind filled with infinite love comes the power to create infinite possibilities. We have the power to think in ways that reflect and attract all the love in the world. Such thinking is called enlightenment. Enlightenment is not a process we work toward, but a choice available to us in any instant.” - Marianne Williamson

72. “Enlightenment is at the source of everything. From it, flows our Intuition and our creative energy. It is the delta of the human spirit ~ what we innately seek to return to, as we find ourselves lost in this world.” - Kim Chestney

73. “Enlightenment is not a goal to be attained, it is a state-of-being to be regained.” - Kim Chestney

74. “Life is like a sandwich!Birth as one slice,and death as the other.What you put in-between the slices is up to you.Is your sandwich tasty or sour?Allan Rufus.org” - Allan Rufus

75. “Life is like a game of chess.To win you have to make a move.Knowing which move to make comes with IN-SIGHTand knowledge, and by learning the lessons that areacculated along the way.We become each and every piece within the game called life!” - Allan Rufus

76. “Live on berries in a hollowed-out comet lit by artificial suns long enough, and you start to have delusions about achieving enlightenment.” - Hannu Rajaniemi

77. “A person must earn enlightenment, Eragon. It is not handed down to you by others, regardless of how revered they be.” - Christopher Paolini

78. “I only come here seeking knowledge” - Sting Police

79. “We come to the end of suffering, through suffering.” - T. Scott McLeod

80. “When you love yourself, utterly and completely, all of yourself, what you will discover then is that you love others, all others, utterly and completely.” - T. Scott McLeod

81. “Nothing needs to be done, and things get done.” - T. Scott McLeod

82. “I loved Enso Roshi’s teachings. I loved learning about life. I loved life. It was a good thing to feel. I loved life, and I loved learning, and I was still learning. I was not, yet, done. At the end of our journeys, there would be an end to the journey. Maybe. If I was lucky. If providence shone down upon me gently. I would find love. I would find acceptance. Complete love. Complete acceptance. I would know, that the self, is an illusion. I would come to enlightenment, but that would also mean, there would be no ‘I’ there. I would realize that the ‘I’ was an illusion, all along, just like some great dream. This is what the wise sages say, the great teachings, the mystical teachings, not only from the East, but also from the West. The Gospel of Saint Thomas. Thomas Merton. Thomas, like I was Thomas, and also doubting, the main reasons I’d chosen the name. If nothing else, it was lovable, just as it is. My life. Even the parts I didn’t love, could I love them? The struggles. It was all part of the journey, and would I not look back fondly on this, at some time? Look at how arduous and sincere I’d been. Look at how worried I’d been. Look at how insecure I’d been. Look at how I’d struggled. Trying to find my way. Would I not look back upon myself, affectionately and fondly and with love?” - T. Scott McLeod

83. “Maybe it’s something which can’t be defined,” Enso Roshi says. “Maybe it’s a question, to be lived.” - T. Scott McLeod

84. “You will bring yourself the suffering you need to bring yourself so that you may awaken.” - T. Scott McLeod

85. “It is the rub that polishes the jewel,” Enso Roshi says. “Nobody ever gets to nirvana without going through samsara. Nobody ever gets to heaven, without going through hell. The center of all things, the truth, is surrounded by demons.” - T. Scott McLeod

86. “Can you allow yourself to be impaled on the present moment?” - T. Scott McLeod

87. “Life gives you exactly what you need to awaken.” - T. Scott McLeod

88. “Let one who seeks not stop seeking until that person finds.” - T. Scott McLeod

89. “There were so many beliefs which we had about the world, which then influenced everything, everything, about how we saw the world and interacted in the world and were with others. Everything. It was profound to me, amazing, the ramifications, the implications, the far-reaching impact that one’s beliefs could have on the world. It was actually mind-blowing for me. Figuratively speaking. Like, it was just, holy shit. Look at that. And nobody, hardly anybody sees it. They’re just ideas. Ideas. And yet, I’d believed them for so long, and still, was still shirking free of them. How was it that we believed in them, so readily, so easily?” - T. Scott McLeod

90. “It is all, the unfolding. Neither good nor bad, my destiny.” - T. Scott McLeod

91. “Mankind's biggest blunder, ignorance. Mankind's second, infallible.” - M.T. Dismuke

92. “The true division of humanity is this: the luminous and the dark.To diminish the number of the dark, to increase the number of the luminous, there is the aim.That is why we cry: education, knowledge! to learn to read is to kindle a fire; every syllable spelled sparkles.But whoever say light does not necessarily say joy.There is suffering in light; an excess burns. Flames is hostile to the wing. To burn and yet to fly, this is the miracle of genius” - Victor Hugo

93. “We are all blessed ones. Heaven is no longer in the clouds. It is right here, all around us, everywhere; we must only open our eyes to see it.” - Kim Chestney

94. “As much as we look up at the stars and know there is more than life on earth, the divinity of dogs is just as unexplainable and profound. They may be the purest example of divine love in an earthly soul many of us ever experience. If we take their lead, open our hearts, and embrace their love, we may just find our own journey a lot more enlightening.” - Jennifer Skiff

95. “I am often impressed with those that admit their ignorance, for it is the first step towards breaking out of the prison called freedom.” - Lionel Suggs

96. “Enlightenment is not about cocooning one’s self, but about integrating more fully with both your self and life.” - jay woodman

97. “I was tired in the evening yesterday. I felt drained by the last days outer conflicts. I felt separated from life. Suddenly I heard the wind blowing through the trees outside my open window, whispering a silent and playful invitation: "Do you want to play? Do you want to join the dance?" This playful invitation again joined my heart and being with the Existential dance. I was again in a silent prayer and oneness with life.” - Swami Dhyan Giten

98. “What are the path of love and the path of meditation? There are basically two different paths to enlightenment. These two paths are The path of love and The path of meditation. The path of love is the female path to enlightenment and The path of meditation is the male path to enlightenment. The path of love is the path of love, joy, relationships, devotion and surrender. The path of meditation is the path of meditation, silence, aloneness and freedom. These two paths has different ways, but they have the same goal. Through love and surrender the person that walks The path of love discovers the inner silence. Through meditation and aloneness the person that walks The path of meditation discovers the inner source of love. These two paths are like climbing the mountain of enlightenment through different routes, but the two paths are meeting on the summit of the mountain - and discover an inner integration between love and meditation, between relating and aloneness. Before I accept to work with a student now, I make an intuitive and clairvoyant evaluation about which spiritual paths that the student has walked before in previous lives. This intuitive assessment gives information about the spiritual level that the student has attained, and it also makes it easier to guide the person spiritually if he has followed a certain path in the past. A female student of mine laughed recently when I told her that she had followed The path of love in several past lives. She commented: "You have told me three times now that I have walked the path of love and silence, but with my head I still do not understand it." But this overall assessment of her spiritual growth uptil now, and of the spiritual paths that she had walked, made all the pieces of her life puzzle fit together - and brought a new, creative light to all her life choices in her current life. A male student of mine, who was a Tibetan monk in a previous life, walks The path of meditation, and I notice how I change my language and the methods that I recommend when I guide him along the path of meditation. I now work with students who walk both The path of love and The path of meditation, which also allows me to discover a deeper integration of love and meditation on my path to enlightenment.” - Swami Dhyan Giten

99. “People who speak or act in an ordinary fashion are most likely to be those who have been the recipients of higher experiences. But because they do not rage around, wild-eyed, people think that they are very ordinary folk and therefore not aware of anything unknown to the general run of man.” - Idries Shah

100. “I have said: "Blow out the lamp! Day is here!" And you keep saying: "Give me a lamp so I can find the day.” - Frank Herbert

101. “Enlightenment isn’t when you go there; it’s when there comes here.” - Jed McKenna

102. “The you that you think of as you (and that thinks of you as you, and so on) is not you, it’s just the character that the underlying truth of you is dreaming into existence. Enlightenment isn’t in the character, it’s in the underlying truth.” - Jed McKenna

103. “An enlightened person raises the level of the consciousness of the entire community.” - Phyllis Theroux

104. “Rather than going after these walls and barriers with a sledgehammer, we pay attention to them. With gentleness and honesty, we move closer to those walls. We touch them, and smell them and get to know them well. We become familiar with the strategies and beliefs we use to build these walls: what are the stories we tell ourselves? What repels me and what attracts me? Without calling what we see right or wrong, we simply look as objectively as we can. We can observe ourselves with humor, not getting overly serious, moralistic or uptight about the investigation. Year after year, we train in remaining open and receptive to whatever arises. Slowly, very slowly, the cracks in the walls seem to widen and, as if by magic, bodhichitta is able to flow freely.” - Pema Chodron

105. “The Buddha’s principal message that day was that holding on to anything blocks wisdom. Any conclusion that we draw must be let go. The only way to fully understand the bodhichitta teachings, the only way to practice them fully, is to abide in the unconditional openness of the prajna, patiently cutting through all our tendencies to hang on.” - Pema Chodron

106. “If I could repeat it,people passing by would be enlightened and go free.” - Rumi

107. “We are figments of the same imagination… We are one” - Gary Hopkins

108. “The road to spiritual enlightenment is an individual experience. The spiritual leader, guru, master or teacher is only a portion of that journey. Eventually, one must “leave the nest” so that they are not limited by the master/student relationship. True advancement begins when the student gains confidence as a practitioner of self-awareness. This can only be done without the constraints of another’s journey, such as the master or teacher.” - Gary Hopkins

109. “Enlightenment is nothing more than moments of self-awareness. Don’t let cultural spiritual hierarchy intimidate you into the mindset of unworthiness. You are divine already, you just need to realize and accept it” - Gary Hopkins

110. “We create the world around us based on our thoughts, feelings, beliefs and emotions. Evil, dark forces, dark energy etc. are forms of the “negative” and are all a projections of the self. There is no separation. Once one realizes this, these energies start to fade and eventually disappear. What’s left is wholeness, contentment, self-realization, gratitude and a perpetual state of well-being. There is a popular saying amongst the healing community “where the mind goes, energy flows”. Use this mantra to your benefit. Lose the “non-sense” of all despair and anguish and catapult your self to a higher place that is incapable of entertaining the “negative” or “destructive”. Achieving this (even in increments) will only transform you to into a better positive place” - Gary Hopkins

111. “Enlightenment begins by getting acquainted with your inner voice or your higher self. The dialogue experienced in this process leads to a more comfortable, better-focused lifestyle. Over time this relationship blossoms into a higher and more efficient form of Self-Management. With practice, thoughts, feelings, emotions, and physical manifestations merge into a more harmonious state. This state of being allows for a softer, more gentile approach to life that not only benefits the individual, but the community as a whole” - Gary Hopkins

112. “When you refuse to entertain the possibility of a solution because you “know” it will not work, then you have successfully strengthened the problem at hand” - Gary Hopkins

113. “Think of a world where “Detachment”, “Gratitude” and “Empathy” were subjects included in every grade school’s curriculum. A new generation would emerge with an attitude of peace, contentment and an overall appreciation for everything and everyone” - Gary Hopkins

114. “Things do not happen to us… They happen because of us” - Gary Hopkins

115. “Negativity is a debilitating disease. It is a slow and painful way to experience life. It attacks the immune system, creates anxiety, and can lead to loneliness and depression. Finding your inner harmony is the quickest way to alleviate the methodical destruction of this dark energy” - Gary Hopkins

116. “Finding the calmness or serenity in oneself effectively diffuses the judgments of others” - Gary Hopkins

117. “We are all Masters. Every thought, word, and action creates our individual reality from one moment to the next. Each individual’s creation, combines to form a shared reality that we all experience…. Consciousness. Being Masters requires us to take responsibility and great care in all that we do, so that the greater, combined consciousness is not hindered by our individual limitations. As Masters, we all have the ability to create, and live in Nirvana. Actively engaging in this personal responsibility, gives each of us the power to live harmoniously as well as to contribute positive re-enforcement to the greater Consciousness that we all share” - Gary Hopkins

118. “Allowing attachments to people/things create a compulsive addiction in us to be controlling. This “control” (fueled by fear of loss) fools us into a false sense of security and love. At first glance, it is common to confuse the idea of Conscious Detachment with non-feeling or being cold, however learning this skill is a giant leap towards enlightenment. When you consciously detach from an object or a loved one, you empower them to exist at their potential. From this perspective, just being in their presence fosters feelings of love and admiration that far exceed any relationship that is limited with expectations, confinement and control” - Gary Hopkins

119. “The smallest component of the human molecule is a vibration - the equivalent to a musical note. Taking the time to learn more self-awareness at this level creates life experiences beyond that of all the greatest symphonies ever heard” - Gary Hopkins

120. “When you take a moment to peel back the layers of time and space in your current state of perception, you soon begin to realize the true nature of the self and it's reality. Increasing your self-awareness naturally fosters compassion and integrity in all actions and attitudes towards oneself and others” - Gary Hopkins

121. “Never allow dogmatic interpretations of Karma to keep you from defending what is right or just. You must accept the reality that on occasion, you may very well be the proper instrument of this cosmic force.” - Gary Hopkins

122. “Enlightenment is scary. Sometimes things look better in the dark.” - David Levithan

123. “Do not limit your Sacred Space to the literal, such as a small room or office. Allow this energy to flow from deep within, so that every where you go, no matter what the circumstance, you will always be immersed in the divine” - Gary Hopkins

124. “Questions are only offensive to those who have something to hide” - Gary Hopkins

125. “Saints and bodhisattvas may achieve what Christians call mystical union or Buddhists call satori--a perpetual awareness of the force at the heart of the heart of things. For these enlightened few, the world is always lit. For the rest of us, such clarity comes only fitfully, in sudden glimpses or slow revelations. Quakers refer to these insights as openings. When I first heard the term from a Friend who was counseling me about my resistance to the Vietnam War, I though of how on an overcast day, sunlight pours through a break in the clouds. After the clouds drift on, eclipsing the sun, the sun keeps shining behind the veil, and the memory of its light shines on in the mind.” - Scott Russell Sanders

126. “Unfortunately, fact checking has become a lost art” - Gary Hopkins