Gnostic Quotes
What’s the meaning of life? Aphorisms, maxims and quotations expressing the paradoxical essence of gnosticism.
We
"We are all captives of the picture in our head - our belief that the world we have experienced is the world that really exists." - Walter Lippmann
"We are bemused and crazed creatures, strangers to our true selves, to one another, and to the spiritual and material world - mad, even, from an ideal [...]
Weakness
"You cannot run away from weakness; you must some time fight it out or perish; and if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?" - Robert Louis Stevenson
"It is a talent of the weak to persuade themselves that they suffer for something when they suffer from something; that they are showing [...]
We II
"We may very well be something different from what we believe ourselves to be, on this earth for reasons that may not yet be known to us." - Whitley Strieber, author of Communion
"We are in a maze…which we built and then we fell into and can't get out… We did it voluntarily; [...]
Whale
"The story of the whale swallowing Jonah, though a whale is large enough to do it, borders greatly on the marvelous; but it would have approached nearer to the idea of a miracle if Jonah had swallowed the whale." - Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
"If the Bible had said that Jonah swallowed [...]
Whirling
"[This world] exists non-necessarily, improbably, and causelessly. It exists for absolutely no reason at all. It is inexplicably and stunningly actual… The impact of this captivated realization upon me is overwhelming. I am completely stunned. I take a few dazed steps in the dark meadow, and fall among the flowers. I lie stupefied, whirling without [...]
Whole Truth
"There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil." - Alfred North Whitehead
"What is laid down, ordered, factual is never enough to embrace the whole truth: life always spills over the rim of every cup." - Boris Pasternak
Why?
"The thing that is incredible is life itself. Why should we be here in this sun-illuminated universe? Why should there be green earth under our feet?" - Edwin Markham, 1852-1940
"Why do you and I exist? Why was this world created? Since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner?" - Samuel [...]
Wings
"There are two lasting bequests we can give our children. One is roots. The other is wings." - Hodding Carter, Jr.
"The man who has no imagination has no wings." - Muhammad Ali
"No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings." - William Blake
"Come to the edge, he said. [...]
Wisdom
"When you learn to distinguish between the container and the contents, you will have attained wisdom." - Idries Shah
"We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there." - Mark Twain
Within
"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us." - Henry David Thoreau
"Our humanity is a poor thing, except for the divinity that stirs within us." - Francis Bacon
"It seems to me that the only true Christians were (are? the Gnostics who [...]
Wolves
"The modern little red riding hood, reared on singing commercials, has no objections to being eaten by the wolf." - Marshall Mcluhan
"The wolf was sick, he vowed a monk to be: But when he got well, a wolf once more was he." - Walter Brower
Women & Men
"Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea." - Robert A. Heinlein
"Men are those creatures with two legs and eight hands." - Jayne Mansfield
Wonder
"The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder." - Ralph W. Sockman
"He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder." - M. C. Escher
"Wonder rather than doubt is the root of knowledge." - Abraham Joshua Heschel
Words
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words. " - PKD, Hope I Shall Arrive Soon, 1986
"Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind." - Rudyard Kipling, Speech, [...]
Work
"Hard work is damn near as overrated as monogamy." - Huey P Long
"Perhaps it is this theory of all work and no play that has made the Marxist such a very dull boy." - Herbert Read, Anarchy & Order
World
"The world is the veil we spin to hide the void." - Norman O. Brown, Love's Body, p.261, pub. A.D. 1968
"The world being illusive, one must be deluded in some way if one is to triumph in it." - W.B. Yeats
Worms
"If men cease to believe that they will one day become gods then they will surely become worms." - Henry Miller
"A little cooling down of animal excitability and instinct, a little loss of animal toughness, a little irritable weakness and descent of the pain-threshold, will bring the worm at the core of all our [...]
