Jiddu Krishnamurti

Philosopher

1895-05-12

Books by Jiddu Krishnamurti

On Freedom
View on Amazon
Life Ahead
View on Amazon
At the Feet of the Master
View on Amazon

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Quotes by Jiddu Krishnamurti

we do not ask. We want to be told. One of the most curious things in the structure of our psyche is that we all want to be told because we are the result of the propaganda of ten thousand years. We want to have our thinking confirmed and corroborated by another, whereas to ask a question is to ask it of yourself.
Read quote
One of the fundamental causes of the disintegration of society is copying, which is the worship of authority.
Read quote
We are so sluggish in our mentality that we think the world's problems are not our business, that they have to be resolved by the United Nations or by substituting new leaders for the old.
Read quote
One was watching the other day a red-tailed hawk, high in the heavens, circling effortlessly, without a beat of the wing, just for the fun of flying, just to be sustained by the air-currents. Then it was joined by another, and they were flying together for quite a while. They were marvellous creatures in that blue sky, and to hurt them in any way is a crime against heaven. Of course there is no heaven; man has invented heaven out of hope, for his life has become a hell, an endless conflict from birth to death, coming and going, making money, working endlessly. This life has become a turmoil, a travail of endless striving. One wonders if man, a human being, will ever live on this earth peacefully. Conflict has been the way of his life - within the skin and outside the skin, in the area of the psyche and in the society which that psyche has created.
Read quote
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
Read quote
Most of us waste this extraordinary thing called life. We have lived forty or sixty years, have gone to the office, engaged ourselves in social activity, escaping in various forms, and at the end of it, we have nothing but an empty, dull, stupid life, a wasted life.Now, please has created this pattern of social life. We take pleasure in ambition, in competition, in acquiring knowledge or power, or position, prestige, status. And that pursuit of pleasure as ambition, competition, greed, envy, status, domination, power is respectable. It is made respectable by a society which has only one concept: that you shall lead a moral life, which is a respectable life. You can be ambitious, you can be greedy, you can be violent, you can be competitive, you can be a ruthless human being, but society accepts it, because at the end of your ambition, you are either so called successful man with plenty of money, or a failure and therefore a frustrated human being. So social morality is immorality.
Read quote
It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy.
Read quote
The primary cause of disorder in ourselves is the seeking of reality promised by another.
Read quote
Passion is a rather frightening thing because if you have passion you don't know where it will take you.
Read quote
To put it differently, as long as mind and heart are caught up in want, in desire, there must be emptiness.You want things, ideas, persons, only when you are conscious of your own emptiness, and that wanting creates a choice.When there is craving there must be choice, and choice precipitates you into the conflict of experiences.You have the capacity to choose, and thereby you limit yourself by your choice. Only when mind is free from choice is there liberation.
Read quote
The word 'innocence' means a mind that is incapable of being hurt.
Read quote
To understand the immeasurable, the mind must be extraordinarily quiet, still.
Read quote
The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.
Read quote
But if one observes, one will see that the body has its own intelligence; it requires a great deal of intelligence to observe the intelligence of the body.
Read quote
The highest form of human intelligence is to observe yourself without judgment.
Read quote
do it or don't do it but get on with it...
Read quote
You have to be a light to yourself in a world that is utterly becoming dark.
Read quote
Seeing everything that goes on in your daily life, your daily activities - when you pick up a pen, when you talk, when you go out for a drive or when you are walking alone in the woods - can you with one breath, with one look, know yourself very simply as you are? When you know yourself as you are, then you understand the whole structure of man's endeavour, his deceptions, his hypocrisies, his search. To do this you must be tremendously honest with yourself throughout your being.
Read quote
Discipline must be without control, without suppression, without any form of fear...It is not discipline first and then freedom; freedom is at the very beginning, not at the end.
Read quote
virtue can flower only when there is freedom.
Read quote