Douglas Hofstadter Quotes

It is often claimed that knowledge multiplies so rapidly that nobody can follow it. I believe this is incorrect. At least in science it is not true. The main purpose of science is simplicity and as we understand more things, everything is becoming simpler. This, of course, goes contrary to what everyone accepts.

Practice moment to moment non-judgemental awareness.

Whatever is your present experience, you can recognize the spaciousness that allows it to be. You are this spaciousness, this awareness, this love. Deeper love and more spacious awareness is the best lesson you can get from any experience.

Too much openness and you accept every notion, idea, and hypothesis-which is tantamount to knowing nothing. Too much skepticism-especially rejection of new ideas before they are adequately tested-and you're not only unpleasantly grumpy, but also closed to the advance of science. A judicious mix is what we need.

It has been a bitter mortification for me to digest the conclusion that the "race is for the strong" and that I shall probably do little more but be content to admire the strides others made in science.

The way to have the life we want is to receive more deeply the life we have. Sometimes we keep our own life at arm's length, thinking we'll wait until circumstances improve before giving it all we've got. But life is just a reflection of consciousness, so it's never going to give any more to us than we give to it. Don't wait for a perfect life; breathe in the life that's already perfect.

What you resist persists. And only what you look at, and own, can disappear. You make it disappear by simply changing your mind about it.

We cannot change anything unless we accept it.

Being present means being completely aware of all that is. It means you’re not in denial, you’re not pretending, and you’re not avoiding.

If you completely accept something, it changes. If you completely accept it, it shifts.

An accepted deed is never small in Taqwa (consciousness of Allah), how can what has been accepted be small?

The whole world opens when we accept this moment, this very moment.

Pain, I came to feel, might well prove to be the sole proof of the persistence of consciousness within the flesh, the sole physical expression of consciousness. As my body acquired muscle, and in turn strength, there was gradually born within me a tendency towards the positive acceptance of pain, and my interest in physical suffering deepened.

Meditation is not concentration. It is simple awareness. You simply relax and watch the breathing. In that watching, nothing is excluded. The car is humming - perfectly okay, accept it. The traffic is passing - that's okay, part of life. The fellow passenger snoring by your side, accept it. Nothing is rejected. You are not to narrow down your consciousness.

I used to try to figure out precisely what I was seeing all the time, until I discovered that I didn't need to. If the thing is true, why there it is.

We are and we know we are and we love to be it and know it.

One of the main discoveries of meditation is seeing how we continually run away from the present moment, how we avoid being here just as we are. That’s not considered to be a problem. The point is to see it.

The spirit of rejection finds its support in the consciousness of separateness; the spirit of acceptance finds its base in the consciousness of unity.

Each one should realize there is nothing in (us) which denies that which (we) desire.

The mind is fast emancipating itself from the dominion of man and of matter. It has let loose fearful forces on the world.

You cannot resist something to which you grant no reality. The act of resisting a thing is the act of granting it life. When you resist an energy, you place it there. The more you resist, the more you make it real-whatever it is you are resisting." "Every human being is as special as every other human being who has ever lived, lives now, or every will live. You are all meesengers. Every one of you. You are carrying a message to life about life every day. Every hour. Every moment.

The secret of awakening is to unconditionally accept this moment as it is.

I write to make peace with the things I cannot control. I write to create fabric in the world that often appears black and white. I write to meet my ghosts. I write to begin a dialogue. I write to imagine things differently and in imagining things differently perhaps the world will change.

The degree to which you will awaken is in direct proportion to the amount of truth you are willing to accept about yourself.

The ensouled is distinguished from the unsouled by its being alive. Now since being alive is spoken of in many ways, even if only one of these is present, we say that the thing is alive, if, for instance, there is intellect or perception or spatial movement and rest or indeed movement connected with nourishment and growth and decay. It is for this reason that all the plants are also held to be alive . . .