“Formerly, it may be said, my whole being was possessed by egoism. All my manifestations and experiencings flowed from my vanity. The meeting with Father Giovanni killed all this, and from then on there gradually arose in me that "something" which has brought the whole of me to the unshakable conviction that, apart from the vanities of life, there exists a "something else" which must be the aim and ideal of every more or less thinking man, and that it is only this something else which may make a man really happy and give him real values, instead of the illusory "goods" with which in ordinary life he is always and in everything full.”
All and Everything: Meetings with Remarkable Men (1963)
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G. I. Gurdjieff62
influential spiritual teacher, Armenian philosopher, compos… 1866–1949Related quotes
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888–1975) Indian philosopher and statesman who was the first Vice President and the second President of India
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Umberto Eco book Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language
[2] Dictionary vs. Encyclopedia, 2.1 : Porphyry strikes back, 2.1.1 : Is a definition an interpretation?
Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language (1984)
Context: A sign is not only something which stands for something else; it is also something that can and must be interpreted. The criterion of interpretability allows us to start from a given sign to cover, step by step, the whole universe of semiosis.
Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011) American artist
quote about influence of Pollock
1960s, Interview with Barbara Rose', Archives - American Art, 1968
Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Speech in the Albert Hall, London (12 May 1938), quoted in The Times (13 May 1938), p. 11.
Prime Minister
Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) Medieval saint, prophetise, mystic and Doctor of Church
Steadfast and gentle father, in your kindness respond to me, your unworthy servant, who has never, from her earliest childhood, lived one hour free from anxiety. In your piety and wisdom look in your spirit, as you have been taught by the Holy Spirit, and from your heart bring comfort to your handmaiden.
Letter to Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, 1146-47
Kurt Koffka (1886–1941) German psychologist
Source: Principles of Gestalt Psychology, 1935, p. 176
Context: Even these humble objects reveal that our reality is not a mere collocation of elemental facts, but consists of units in which no part exists by itself, where each part points beyond itself and implies a larger whole. Facts and significance cease to be two concepts belonging to different realms, since a fact is always a fact in an intrinsically coherent whole. We could solve no problem of organization by solving it for each point separately, one after the other; the solution had to come for the whole. Thus we see how the problem of significance is closely bound up with the problem of the relation between the whole and its parts. It has been said: The whole is more than the sum of its parts. It is more correct to say that the whole is something else than the sum of its parts, because summing is a meaningless procedure, whereas the whole-part relationship is meaningful.