If you’re looking for some words of wisdom, you’ll find plenty in Jiddu Krishnamurti quotes. This philosopher and author had a lot to say about the nature of existence and the human condition, and his insights are as relevant today as they were when he first uttered them. If you’re looking for some inspiration, look no further than Krishnamurti.
Krishnamurti was born on May 11, 1895, in India. He was a philosopher and spiritual teacher, although he disliked the term “guru.” Krishnamurti’s message was that the individual is the only one who can bring about change in the world, and that this change must come from within. He rejected all dogma and belief systems, instead teaching that each person must find their own way to truth. Krishnamurti’s teachings continue to be highly influential to this day.
Krishnamurti was highly critical of traditional education, which he felt was based on authoritarianism and rote learning. In its place, he advocated a form of education that was based on individual freedom and self-discovery. He believed that this approach would allow students to develop their own unique potential and become creative and independent thinkers.
If you’re looking for some inspiration, or just want to learn more about life, then you should definitely read some of Krishnamurti‘s quotes.
Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes
- “The more you know yourself, the more clarity there is. Self-knowledge has no end – you don’t come to an achievement, you don’t come to a conclusion. It is an endless river.”
2. “The only freedom is the freedom from the known.”
3. “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
4. “Acquiring knowledge is a form of imitation.”
4. “To have intelligence there must be freedom, and you cannot be free if you are constantly being urged to become like some hero, for then the hero is important and not you.”
5. “We want to make life permanent, but in doing so we go against nature, and there lies our pain. Only the mind which is always moving, without resting places and fixed ideas, can be in tune with life and therefore joyful.”
6. “Do not repeat after me words that you do not understand. Do not merely put on a mask of my ideas, for it will be an illusion and you will thereby deceive yourself.”
7. “Tradition becomes our security, and when the mind is secure it is in decay.”
8. “The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.”
9. “To understand yourself is the beginning of wisdom.”
10. “One is never afraid of the unknown; one is afraid of the known coming to an end.”
Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes on Life
11. “To understand the immeasurable, the mind must be extraordinarily quiet, still.”
12. “The ending is the beginning, and the beginning is the first step, and the first step is the only step.”
13. “The primary cause of disorder in ourselves is the seeking of reality promised by another.”
14. “It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy.”
15. “Find out for yourself what are the possesions and ideals that you do not desire. By knowing what you do not want, by elimination, you will unburden the mind, and only then will it understand the essential which is ever there.”
16. “If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.”
17. “To compare is the very nature of a mind that is not awake to discover what is true.”
18. “You must look most intimately and discover for yourself; then it is your own, not somebody else’s, not something that you have been told, because there is no teacher and no follower.”
19. “Thought is so cunning, so clever, that it distorts everything for its own convenience.”
20. “When you once see something as false which you have accepted as true, as natural, as human, then you can never go back to it.”
21. “Order cannot possibly be brought about through conformity to a pattern, under any circumstances.”
22. “Real learning comes about when the competitive spirit has ceased.”
23. “When we suffer we have made it into a personal affair. We shut out all the suffering of mankind.”
24. “What you are the world is. And without your transformation, there can be no transformation of the world.”
Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes on Love
25. “Freedom and love go together. Love is not a reaction. If I love you because you love me, that is mere trade, a thing to be bought in the market; it is not love. To love is not to ask anything in return, not even to feel that you are giving something- and it is only such love that can know freedom.”
26. “It is love alone that leads to right action. What brings order in the world is to love and let love do what it will.”
27. “Happiness is strange; it comes when you are not seeking it. When you are not making an effort to be happy, then unexpectedly, mysteriously, happiness is there, born of purity, of a loveliness of being.”
28. “Only when the brain has cleansed itself of its conditioning, greed, envy, ambition, then only it can comprehend that which is complete. Love is this completeness.”
29. “Love is something totally new every day, but pleasure is not, pleasure has continuity. Love is always new, and therefore it is its own eternity.”
30. “So as long as the mind is comparing, there is no love, and the mind is always judging, comparing, weighing, looking to find out where the weakness is. So where there is comparison, there is no love.”
31. “Happiness comes when you are doing something because you really love to do it, and not because it gives you riches or makes you a prominent person.”
32. “The moment you have in your heart this extra-ordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.”
33. “If you had love in your heart, you would show respect to those who have nothing and also to those who have everything; you would neither be afraid of those who have, nor disregard those who have not. Respect in the hope of reward is the outcome of fear. In love there is no fear.”
34. “Freedom and love go together. Love is not a reaction. To love is not to ask anything in return, not even to feel that you are giving something, and it is only such love that can know freedom.”
Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes on Education
35. “Real learning comes about when the competitive spirit has ceased.”
36. “You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life.”
37. “There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.”
38. “To understand life is to understand ourselves, and that is both the beginning and the end of education.”
39. “The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.”
40. “If we can really understand the problem, the answer will come out of it, because the answer is not separate from the problem.”
Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes on Relationships
41. “But if you have no relationship with the living things on this earth, you may lose whatever relationship you have with humanity.”
42. “When one loses the deep intimate relationship with nature, then temples, mosques and churches become important.”
43. “Tell your friend that in his death, a part of you dies and goes with him. Wherever he goes, you also go. He will not be alone.”
44. “Action has meaning only in relationship, and without understanding relationship, action on any level will only breed conflict. The understanding of relationship is infinitely more important than the search for any plan of action.”
45. “Life is a movement, a constant movement in relationship; and thought, trying to capture that movement in terms of the past, as memory, is afraid of life.”
Short Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes
46. “You must be a light unto yourself.”
47. “The significance of life is living.”
48. “The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.”
49. “Leaders destroy the followers and followers destroy the leaders.”
50. “Happy is the man who is nothing.”
51. “Analysis does not transform consciousness.”
52. “Be a light unto oneself”
53. “You can only be afraid of what you think you know.”
54. “Tradition becomes our security, and when the mind is secure it is in decay.”
Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes on the Truth
55. “The ending of sorrow is the beginning of wisdom. Knowledge is always within the shadow of ignorance. Meditation is freedom from thought and a movement in the ecstasy of truth. Meditation is explosion of intelligence.”
56. “Truth is a pathless land.”
57. “It is truth that liberates, not your effort to be free.”
58. “I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. … The moment you follow someone you cease to follow truth.”
59. “It is only in alert silence that truth can be.”
60. “Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect … Your have to be your own teacher and your own disciple. You have to question everything that man has accepted as valuable, as necessary.”
61. “Poverty becomes a marvellously beautiful thing when the mind is free of society. One must become poor inwardly for then there is no seeking, no asking, no desire, no – nothing! It is only this inward poverty that can see the truth of a life in which there is no conflict at all”
Thought-Provoking Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes
62. “A man who says, ‘I want to change, tell me how to’, seems very earnest, very serious, but he is not. He wants an authority whom he hopes will bring about order in himself. But can authority ever bring about inward order? Order imposed from without must always breed disorder.”
63. “Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom, which is the ending of fear.”
64. “The more you know yourself, the more clarity there is. Self-knowledge has no end – you don’t come to an achievement, you don’t come to a conclusion. It is an endless river.”
65. “Teaching is not the mere imparting of knowledge but the cultivation of an inquiring mind.”
66. “Most people are afraid to stand alone; they are afraid to think things out for themselves, afraid to feel deeply, to explore and discover the whole meaning of life.”
67. “In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either they key or the door to open, except yourself.”
68. “The word ‘innocence’ means a mind that is incapable of being hurt.”
69. “Living in the present is the instant perception of beauty and the great delight in it without seeking pleasure from it.”
70. “To understand the immeasurable, the mind must be extraordinarily quiet, still.”
71. “When you are young you are curious to know all about everything, why the sun shines, what the stars are, all about the moon and the world around us; but as we grow older, knowledge becomes a mere collection of information without any feeling.”
72. “One is never afraid of the unknown one is afraid of the known coming to an end.”
73. “Fear is the destructive energy in man. It withers the mind, it distorts thought, it leads to all kinds of extraordinarily clever and subtle theories, absurd superstitions, dogmas, and beliefs.”