150 Enlightening Quotes

In a world brimming with constant activity and endless noise, sometimes all it takes is a few words to pause, reflect, and reconnect with what truly matters. Whether you're seeking wisdom for personal growth, a touch of inspiration to brighten your day, or profound insights to spark meaningful conversations, enlightening quotes have the power to transform perspectives. In this carefully curated collection of the top 150 quotes, you’ll find timeless gems from great thinkers, poets, and visionaries. Allow these words to uplift your spirit, challenge your mind, and guide you on a journey of self-discovery and enlightenment.

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. “What should I do—how should I act now, this very day . . . What she would resolve to do that day did not yet seem quite clear, but something that she could achieve stirred her as with an approaching murmur which would soon gather distinctness.” - George Eliot (Middlemarch)

3. “The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in fire at the end of six thousand years is true, as I have heard from Hell.For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave his guard at tree of life, and when he does, the whole creation will be consumed, and appear infinite, and holy whereas it now appears finite & corrupt.” - William Blake

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

5. “Dream Song:As my eyes Search the prairie, I feel the summer in the spring. Whenever I pause The noise Of the village. ” - Frances Densmore

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

7. “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.” - Socrates

8. “Enlightenment is ego's ultimate disappointment.” - CHOGYAM TRUNGPA

9. “With me, illusions are bound to be shattered. I am here to shatter all illusions. Yes, it will irritate you, it will annoy you - that's my way of functioning and working. I will sabotage you from your very roots! Unless you are totally destroyed as a mind, there is no hope for you.” - Osho

10. “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

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

12. “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

13. “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

14. “Is it by chance that the 18th century of France, the century of the "philosophy of enlightenment," did not produce any poets except the Marquis de Sade, who -- despite his participation in the events of this epoch -- expressed the first violent protest against the essential postulates of this period?” - Benjamin Péret

15. “Then, what is sacrelige [sic]? If it is nothing more than a rebellion against dogma, it is eventually as meaningless as the dogma it defies, and they are both become hounds ranting in the high grass, never see the boar in the thicket. Only a religious person can perpetrate sacrelige: and if its blasphemy reaches the heart of the question; if it investigates deeply enough to unfold, not the pattern, but the materials of the pattern, and the necessity of a pattern; if it questions so deeply that the doubt it arouses is frightening and cannot be dismissed; then it has done its true sacreligious [sic] work, in the service of its adversary: the only service that nihilism can ever perform.(unused 1949 prefatory note to The Recognitions) ” - William Gaddis

16. “Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light.” - Vera Nazarian

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. “Do not look for happiness outside yourself. The awakened seek happiness inside.” - Peter Deunov

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

20. “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

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

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

23. “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.

24. “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

25. “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

26. “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

27. “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

28. “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

29. “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

30. “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

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

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

33. “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

34. “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

35. “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

36. “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

37. “Memories are of the ethereal, and not the material world, that is how I know I am forever.” - Michael Poeltl

38. “I've learned .... That opportunities are never lost; someone will take the ones you miss.” - Andy Rooney

39. “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

40. “An enlightened man had but one duty - to seek the way to himself, to reach inner certainty, to grope his way forward, no matter where it led.” - Hermann Hesse

41. “Despair is the result of each earnest attempt to go through life with virtue, justice and understanding, and to fulfill their requirements. Children live on one side of despair, the awakened on the other side.” - Hermann Hesse

42. “The Encyclopedia--the advance artillery of reason, the armada of philosophy, the siege engine of the enlightenment...” - Peter Prange

43. “In the most general terms, the Enlightenment goes back to Plato's belief that truth and beauty and goodness are connected; that truth and beauty, disseminated widely, will sooner or later lead to goodness. (While we're making at effort at truth and goodness, beauty reminds us what we're hold out for.)” - Susan Neiman

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

45. “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

46. “Knowing others is Wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment” - Lao Tzu

47. “I wear a taint of rationing, that's all. I have the thready, ashamed look of a reduced person who assumes there is a worse reduction to come.” - Morag Joss

48. “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

49. “He in whom the love of repose predominates will accept the first creed, the first philosophy, the first political party he meets — most likely his father's. He gets rest, commodity, and reputation; but he shuts the door of truth.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

51. “In his face there came to be a brooding peace that is seen most often in the faces of the very sorrowful or the very wise. But still he wandered through the streets of the town, always silent and alone.” - Carson McCullers

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

53. “Always try and be a better person than you were yesterday, cause we aren't guaranteed tomorrow.” - Tina A. Morgan

54. “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

55. “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

56. “Education leads to enlightenment. Enlightenment opens the way to empathy. Empathy foreshadows reform.” - Derrick A. Bell

57. “Enlightenment is: absolute cooperation with the inevitable.” - Anthony de Mello

58. “Enlightenment, and the death which comes before it, is the primary business of Varanasi.” - Tahir Shah

59. “Many people are so poor that the only thing they have is money. Cultivate your spiritual growth.” - Rodolfo Costa

60. “...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

61. “Maybe the Truth of the Meaning of Life, Ancient and Arcane Knowledge of the Great Unknowable Universe is handed down only to persons presenting with the correct brand-name footwear. If you turn up wearing Shoe City knock-offs, you don't get to pass Go and collect Infinite Enlightenment.” - Tracy Engelbrecht

62. “If you would listen, sir, in the sense of being aware of your conflicts and contradictions without forcing them into any particular pattern of thought, perhaps they might altogether cease.” - Jiddu Krishnamurti

63. “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

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

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

66. “The problem is not that you have problems; the problem is that you see having problems as a problem.” - Maurice Makalu

67. “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

68. “My spirit is healthy, yes. But I tell you, my flesh is healthy too. I am enlightened and free, but I am also lustful and carnal.” - C. JoyBell C.

69. “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

70. “At the same time, we may not as a culture be fond of old-fashioned supernaturalism, but we certainly like spirituality in whatever form we can get it. I suspect that if anyone other than Jesus (Krishna, say, or Buddha) were suddenly put forward as being due for a second coming, millions in our postsecular society would embrace such a thing uncritically, leaving Enlightenment rationalism huffing and puffing in the rear. We are a puzzled and confused generation, embracing any and every kind of nonrationalism that may offer us a spiritual shot in the arm while lapsing back into rationalism (in particular, the old modernist critiques) whenever we want to keep traditional or orthodox Christianity at bay.” - N.T. Wright

71. “Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.” - KANT, IMMANUEL

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

73. “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

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

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

76. “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

77. “While pensive poets painful vigils keep,Sleepless themselves, to give their readers sleep.” - Alexander Pope

78. “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

79. “In that nanosecond of enlightenment I knew that the human spirit survives the death of the physical body and I understood that my wandering soul needed to get back into its earthly habitat.” - Janet Bettag

80. “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

81. “The most incredible architectureIs the architecture of Self,which is ever changing, evolving, revolving and has unlimited beauty and light inside which radiates outwards for everyone to see and feel. With every in breatheyou are adding to your lifeand every out breathe you are releasing what is not contributing to your life.Every breathe is a re-birth.” - Allan Rufus

82. “You can't love your mother or father if you don't also have the capacity to grieve their deaths and, perhaps even more so, grieve parts of their lives.” - Glenn Beck

83. “I'm no one... I don't want to be anyone. I stepped into singularity to exist within a void. I'm no one... However, I am becoming... Imagination. I am grabbing conception, and leaving humanity behind. Humans have lost their sight, and individuality makes people blind to the truth. It makes people believe that anything is possible. Only nothing is possible. But then again, my words are the words of no one.” - Lionel Suggs

84. “Mystical insight and enlightenment occur when the veil between the worlds is lifted, the worlds are bridged, the gap closes, and we cross over.” - Tom Cowan

85. “What actually happened was something absurdly simple and unspectacular: I stopped thinking. [...] Reason and imagination and all mental chatter died down. For once, words really failed me. Past and future dropped away. I forgot who and what I was, my name, manhood, animalhood, all that could be called mine. It was as if I had been born that instant, brand new, mindless, innocent of all memories. There existed only the Now, that present moment and what was clearly given in it. To look was enough. And what I found was khaki trouserlegs terminating downwards in a pair of brown shoes, khaki sleeves terminating sideways in a pair of pink hands, and a khaki shirtfront terminating upwards in—absolutely nothing whatever! Certainly not in a head.It took me no time at all to notice that this nothing, this hole where a head should have been was no ordinary vacancy, no mere nothing. On the contrary, it was very much occupied. It was a vast emptiness vastly filled, a nothing that found room for everything—room for grass, trees, shadowy distant hills, and far above them snowpeaks like a row of angular clouds riding the blue sky. I had lost a head and gained a world.” - Douglas Harding

86. “Full minds create chaos.” - David W. Jones

87. “To be enlightened is to know oneself and not run away.” - Veronique Vienne

88. “Bhikkus, all is burning. And what is the all that is burning? The eye is burning, visible forms are burning, eye-consciousness is burning, eye-contact is burning; also whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with eye-contact as its condition, that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of greed, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion, with birth, ageing and death, with sorrow, with lamentation, with pain, grief and despair it is burning.” - The Buddha's Fire Sermon

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

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

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

92. “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

93. “To hate the hate was just more hate; to reject the rejection was just more rejection; to judge the judging, just more judging.” - T. Scott McLeod

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

95. “You necessarily have to be lost, before you’re found.” - T. Scott McLeod

96. “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

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

98. “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

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

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

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

102. “Let whatever happens, be what needs to happen, so that I may awaken.” - T. Scott McLeod

103. “Enlightenment is its own reward, its own punishment. You begin to see so much more. And so much more sees you.” - Laird Barron

104. “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

105. “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

106. “Over the years, one comes to measure a place, too, not just for the beauty it may give, the balminess of its breezes, the insouciance and relaxation it encourages, the sublime pleasures it offers, but for what it teaches. The way in which it alters our perception of the human. It is not so much that you want to return to indifferent or difficult places, but that you want to not forget.” - Barry Lopez

107. “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

108. “When I did a therapist education in USA 1984, one of the course leaders – who had given personal and spiritual guidance to thousands of seekers of truth from all over the world, and who I consider to be one of the best spiritual therapists in the world – said that I was going to get enlightened, that I would ”disappear into the silence”. I did not really understand what he meant then, and it was totally absurd for me when other course participants congratulated me afterwards. The thought that I was going to be enlightened was totally absurd for me. For me enlightenment was something that happened to special and chosen persons like Osho, Buddha, Jesus, Lao-Tzu and Krishnamurti. I did not feel either special or chosen. I did not feel worthy of being enlightened.” - Swami Dhyan Giten

109. “I had a magical day during one Sunday when I walked out in nature. On the outside this day only consisted of taking a walk out in the beautiful sunny weather and cleaning my apartment, but on the inside everything suddenly changed. When I walked out in nature in the sunny weather, a silent explosion suddenly happened within me and my whole perception of reality changed. In a single moment, everything had changed, although nothing on the outside had really changed. Everything on the outside was exactly as before, but my way of seeing had changed. The difference was that before I did not see and now I could see. My eyes were open. Suddenly I was one with everything, one with the stones, one with the trees and one with the people that I meet on my walk. My heart danced with joy together with a feeling of: ”I am God”. Not that I am the creator of everything, but that I am part of the Whole, part of the divine. It felt like coming home, that Existence is my home. I also saw that even if the people that I meet did not understand that they are a part of the Whole, they still are a part of the Whole. I felt the waves of Existence in my own heart and being and I felt like a small wave in a great ocean. It gave a taste of the eternal, a taste of the limitless and boundless source of creativity. In just a few moments, I learnt more than during 20 years in university. Wisdom is basically the understanding that we all are part of the Whole. We are all small rivers moving towards the ocean. I laughed at the fact that enlightenment is really our innate birthright, and that small children already live in this mystical unity with the Whole.” - Swami Dhyan Giten

110. “A friend of mine commented yesterday that she has experienced similar insights that I talked about that all enlightened Masters and founders of religion are actually talking about the same ocean, the same invisible life source, the same God. She also said that she worked in a Christan environment at the time that she received these insights, and when she tried to share these insights with the Christians she was accused of being "impure" and of being associated with the "Devil". Christians hold on to the idea that Jesus was the only son of God, without realizing that we are all son's and daughter's of God. By holding on to the idea that Jesus is the only son of God, they do not either to realize that all enlightened Masters are talking about the same God. Jesus did not talk about faith, he talked about trust. He talked about discovering a trust in yourself and in relationship to God. Jesus said that the kingdom of God is within you. In Christianity, the church has become the intermediate between man and God, and people who claim that they have found a direct relationship to God are accused of blasphemy. The Christan church has become a barrier between man and God, and anyone who has declared that he has found a direct relationship to God are immediately banned by the church, for example Master Eckhart and Franciskus of Assisi. I have always had a deep love for Jesus, but it is not the picture of Jesus that the Christian church presents. I was a disciple of Jesus in a former life, and was thrown to the lions in Colosseum in Rome as one of the early Christians. Jesus had many more disciples than the twelve disciples mentioned in The Bible. In this life, I resigned my automatic membership in the church as soon as I could think for myself when I was 15 years old. I was also disgusted with an organization that said that they preached love and which has murdered more people than Hitler. My experience with these rare and precious insights are that they expand our consciousness of reality. They are gradual initiations into reality. They may fade away, but we will never be the same again after receiving them. They will also come more and more, the more committment we have to our spiritual growth.” - Swami Dhyan Giten

111. “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

112. “Meditation is a way to be narcissistic without hurting anyone” - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

113. “That which you see in me is that which is in you. ~ Maitreya Miranda* ~” - Miranda* Linda Weisz

114. “If peace comes from seeing the whole,then misery stems from a loss of perspective.We begin so aware and grateful. The sun somehow hangs there in the sky. The little bird sings. The miracle of life just happens. Then we stub our toe, and in that moment of pain, the whole world is reduced to our poor little toe. Now, for a day or two, it is difficult to walk. With every step, we are reminded of our poor little toe.Our vigilance becomes: Which defines our day—the pinch we feel in walking on a bruised toe, or the miracle still happening?It is the giving over to smallness that opens us to misery. In truth, we begin taking nothing for granted, grateful that we have enough to eat, that we are well enough to eat. But somehow, through the living of our days, our focus narrows like a camera that shutters down, cropping out the horizon, and one day we’re miffed at a diner because the eggs are runny or the hash isn’t seasoned just the way we like.When we narrow our focus, the problem seems everything. We forget when we were lonely, dreaming of a partner. We forget first beholding the beauty of another. We forget the comfort of first being seen and held and heard. When our view shuts down, we’re up in the night annoyed by the way our lover pulls the covers or leaves the dishes in the sink without soaking them first.In actuality, misery is a moment of suffering allowed to become everything. So, when feeling miserable, we must look wider than what hurts. When feeling a splinter, we must, while trying to remove it, remember there is a body that is not splinter, and a spirit that is not splinter, and a world that is not splinter.” - Mark Nepo

115. “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

116. “Was this how trauma worked? she wondered. Those closest to it remained dumbfounded by the fact that those who weren't present could derive meaning from it?” - Kevin Wilson

117. “Suffering just means you’re having a bad dream. Happiness means you’re having a good dream. Enlightenment means getting out of the dream altogether.” - Jed McKenna

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

119. “The bottom line remains the same: you’re either awake or you’re not.One day, there it is. Nothing. No more enemies, no more battles.” - Jed McKenna

120. “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

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

122. “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

123. “Our Christian faith - and correlatively, our account of apologetics - is tainted by modernism when we fail to appreciate the effects of sin on reason. When this is ignored, we adopt an Enlightenment optimism about the role of a supposedly neutral reason in the recognition of truth.” - James K.A. Smith

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

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

126. “Anything worth having doesn’t come easy' is a perception of negativity perpetuated by misery looking for company. Accept nothing but the opposite of this intention and soon your life will navigate away from perpetual negative thinking and outcomes to the endless positive quality of life that exists for all of us” - Gary Hopkins

127. “A compulsive external search only leads us to the interpretation of another’s path. True identity and sustained harmony can only be achieved by turning inward, and it is there that you will find every answer that you need to step into enlightenment” - Gary Hopkins

128. “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

129. “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

130. “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

131. “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

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

133. “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

134. “Removing toxicity from your life is essential to maintaining a peaceful state of mind and an overall quality of health. This purging can and should include any detrimental habits, including negative, controlling, and abusive people. Once you start living an empowered lifestyle that supports your own higher balance, you will find it to be an easy transition from the negative to the positive in every aspect of your life” - Gary Hopkins

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

136. “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

137. “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

138. “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

139. “Attaining bliss can take lifetimes, or one can simply choose to experience it in their deepest dreams. Sleep well my friend, as dreams are vehicles that can quickly take you to the awareness that you call Nirvana” - Gary Hopkins

140. “Loneliness is a condition of energetic imbalance. As with all human conditions it is an illusion, albeit a very debilitating one if left unchecked. The key to overcoming any imbalance is to open your awareness to it, and then simply observe it. By observing the imbalance, the anguish of the emotional aspect dissipates allowing a new perspective to emerge, which ultimately has a smoothing effect on the imbalance itself. A focused mind over a short period of time can conquer any energetic imbalance… even loneliness” - Gary Hopkins

141. “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

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

143. “We must empower our weak to be strong, and teach our strong to be compassionate. This will open a door to oneness.” - Gary Hopkins

144. “When a bully is held accountable for his actions, his future actions will change. Bad behavior only continues for those who allow it.” - Gary Hopkins

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

146. “Maintaining one’s health in today’s toxic rich environment requires proper rest, hydration, an abundant intake of nutrients, and regular internal cleansing practices” - Gary Hopkins

147. “In so many ways we are still in the dark ages, but there is light appearing over the horizon of choice and consciousness.” - Bryant McGill

148. “Enlightenment means taking full responsibility for your life.” - William Blake

149. “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

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