“Throughout life, from childhood, from school until we die, we are taught to compare ourselves with another; yet when I compare myself with another I am destroying myself.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti

Talks & Dialogues, Saanen (9 July1967) http://www.jkrishnamurti.com/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=41&chid=1, p. 86
1960s
Context: Throughout life, from childhood, from school until we die, we are taught to compare ourselves with another; yet when I compare myself with another I am destroying myself. In a school, in an ordinary school where there are a lot of boys, when one boy is compared with another who is very clever, who is the head of the class, what is actually taking place? You are destroying the boy. That’s what we are doing throughout life. Now, can I live without comparison — without comparison with anybody? This means there is no high, no low — there is not the one who is superior and the other who is inferior. You are actually what you are and to understand what you are, this process of comparison must come to an end. If I am always comparing myself with some saint or some teacher, some businessman, writer, poet, and all the rest, what has happened to me — what have I done? I only compare in order to gain, in order to achieve, in order to become — but when I don’t compare I am beginning to understand what I am. Beginning to understand what I am is far more fascinating, far more interesting; it goes beyond all this stupid comparison.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Dec. 31, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Throughout life, from childhood, from school until we die, we are taught to compare ourselves with another; yet when I …" by Jiddu Krishnamurti?

Jiddu Krishnamurti 233

Indian spiritual philosopher 1895–1986

Related quotes

“I am not resting until I die. I am not doing this for myself, but for the country.”

Mohamed Al-Fayed (1933) Egyptian businessman

Quoted in [Caroline, McClatchey, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7250241.stm, Al Fayed states his position on the Diana inquest, BBC, February 18, 2007, 2007-3-18]

“As incompetent in life as in death, I loathe myself and in this loathing I dream of another life, another death. And for having sought to be a sage such as never was, I am only a madman among the mad.”

Emil M. Cioran book A Short History of Decay

A Short History of Decay (1949)

“I taught in the Academy from the opening of the schools until I was turned out, a period much longer than I should have permitted myself to remain there.My honors are misunderstanding, persecution and neglect, enhanced because unsought.”

Thomas Eakins (1844–1916) American painter

Letter to Harrison Morris (1894-04-23).

“In a word, be it with reason or without reason or against reason, I am resolved not to die. And if, when at last I die out, I die altogether, then I shall not have died out of myself — that is, I shall not have yielded myself to death, but my human destiny shall have killed me. Unless I come to lose my head, or rather my heart, I will not abdicate from life — life will be wrested from me.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VI : In the Depths of the Abyss
Context: I will not say that the more or less poetical and unphilosophical doctrines that I am about to set forth are those which make me live; but I will venture to say that it is my longing to live and to live for ever that inspires these doctrines within me. And if by means of them I succeed in strengthening and sustaining this same longing in another, perhaps when it is all but dead, then I shall have performed a man's work, and above all, I shall have lived. In a word, be it with reason or without reason or against reason, I am resolved not to die. And if, when at last I die out, I die altogether, then I shall not have died out of myself — that is, I shall not have yielded myself to death, but my human destiny shall have killed me. Unless I come to lose my head, or rather my heart, I will not abdicate from life — life will be wrested from me.

“When I hear somebody sigh that "Life is hard," I am always tempted to ask, "Compared to what?"”

Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986) American journalist

"Purely Personal Prejudices" http://books.google.com/books?id=DLcEAQAAIAAJ&q=%22When+I+hear+somebody+sigh+that+Life+is+hard+I+am+always+tempted+to+ask+Compared+to+what%22&pg=PA241#v=onepage
Strictly Personal (1953)

“England without an Empire! Can you conceive it? England in that case would not be the England we love. (Cheers.) If the ties of sympathy...between ourselves and our children who are soon to become great nations across the seas—if these ties were weakened or destroyed, if we suffered their affection to die from want of food, if we allowed them to drift apart—then this England of ours would sink from the comparative position which she has enjoyed throughout the centuries...she would be a fifth-rate nation existing on the sufferance of her more powerful neighbours.”

Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) British businessman, politician, and statesman

Speech in Birmingham (9 July 1906), quoted in The Times (10 July 1906), p. 11
1900s

“We all leave one another. We die, we change - it's mostly change - we outgrow our best friends; but even if I do leave you, I will have passed on to you something of myself; you will be a different person because of knowing me; it's inescapable…”

Edna O'Brien (1930) Novelist, memoirist, biographer, playwright, poet and short story writer

Source: Girl with Green Eyes

“They that endeavour to abolish vice destroy also virtue, for contraries, though they destroy one another, are yet the life of one another.”

Thomas Browne book Religio Medici

Section 4
Religio Medici (1643), Part II

“I am sure there is only one solution, that is for me to remove myself from the King's life. That is what I am doing now.”

Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (1896–1986) wife of Edward VIII of the United Kingdom

After the possibility of abdication was reported in the newspapers, she left for Cannes, 3 December 1936.
Matthew, H. C. G., ‘Edward VIII [later Prince Edward, duke of Windsor] (1894–1972)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 accessed 21 Nov 2008 http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31061,

“I did not myself know what I wanted: I feared life, desired to escape from it, yet still hoped something of it.”

Leo Tolstoy book A Confession

Source: A Confession

“Throughout life, from childhood, from school until we die, we are taught to compare ourselves with another; yet when I compare myself with another I am destroying myself.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Jiddu Krishnamurti 233

Related quotes

Related topics