100 marvellous great quotes and aphorisms by great and famous authors and writers edited for the World of English blog by Carl William Brown, a sincere literary avenger. (Find out more about him on Amazon).

Audi doctrinam, si vis vitare ruinam: cum sine doctrina nil proficiat medicina.
Proverbium mediaevale

Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem he must solve.
Erich Fromm

When muslims become Osho’s followers I will trust them a little bit more.
Carl William Brown

Sobriety distinguishes, discriminates, and says no. Intoxication expands, unites, and says yes.
William James

We’ll meet again in the gardens of memory, in the palace of dreams.
Lewis Caroll

The ethics of knowledge and social justice do not exist; instead, there is the use of force, abuse of power, and institutionalized fraud to safeguard privilege, injustice, and the spread of stupidity.
Carl William Brown

The man who cannot create wants to destroy.
Erich Fromm

Stupid people ask about God, the intelligent person asks about death. The people who go on asking about God never find God, and the person who asks about death is bound to find God
Osho

We survive by what we receive, but we live by what we give.
Carl Gustav Jung

Syncretinism is santanic!
Carl William Brown

What the herd hates most is a person who thinks differently.
Arthur Shopenhauer

Coniunctio or Coincidentia Oppositorum: if everything makes sense, then nothing makes sense; that’s why we live in a painful and absurd world.
Carl William Brown

I turn cruel when I am empty, If I cannot be loved, I must be feared.
Niccolò Machiavelli

Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.
Adam Smith

Literature is a defence against the insults of life.
Cesare Pavese

The result of every life is completely erroneous, so why the bothering of calculation, or of having faith.
Carl William Brown

Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.
Margaret Mead

To be happy you must eliminate two things: The fear of a bad future and The memory of a bad past.
Seneca

From the beginning till the end the entire life is a whole process of learning, of how useless it all has been.
Carl William Brown

What are you afraid of losing, when nothing in the world actually belongs to you?
Marcus Aurelius

The human soul is “symphonic”; music is part of the profound nature.
Hildegard of Bingen

Never play fair in a game where others cheat.
Niccolò Machiavelli

Too many pacifists around, we need a good war here too, like in the good old days, the only hygiene for a world too full of idiots.
Carl William Brown

Dare to declare who you are. It is not far from the shores of silence to the boundaries of speech. The path is not long, but the way is deep. You must not only walk there, you must be prepared to leap.
Hildegard von Bingen

Humor is the weapon of the wise for it disarms the arrogant.
Aristophanes

Silence was fundamental for Osho, also because most of the time, speaking is useless, given the ordinary human capacity for understanding.
Carl William Brown

The soul is the greening life force of the flesh, for the body grows and prospers through her, just as the earth becomes fruitful when it is moistened. The soul humidifies the body so it does not dry out, just like the rain which soaks into the earth.
Hildegard von Bingen

Highly intelligent people cannot be evil, because evil requires stupidity and a limited mind.
J.P. Sartre

I wouldn’t like to die alone; it would be better to be in good company, but whose one? Unfortunately, choices have always been my weakness.
Carl William Brown

Se viviamo, è per camminare sulla testa dei Re.
William Shakespeare

We cannot live in a world interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not a hope. Part of the terror is to take back our listening, to use our own voice, to see our own light.
Hildegard von Bingen

Never let the future disturb you. you will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason that arm you today, against the present.
Marcus Aurelius

In pursuit of knowledge, every day something is added. In pursuit of the Tao, every day something is dropped.
Tao Te Ching

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
Seneca

Religion is like a blind man looking in a black room for a black cat that isn’t there, and finding it.
Oscar Wilde

Peace is defined not merely by the absence of war, but as a proactive state characterized by the presence of justice, equity, understanding, and human rights.
Martin Luther King Via Baruch Spinoza

Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.
Baruch Spinoza

In a few years, no doubt, marriage licences will be sold like dog licences, good for 12 months.”
Aldous Huxley

Stupid matter uses even its most brilliant scientific minds to spread its own harmful imbecility.
Carl William Brown

Of all follies there is none greater than wanting to make the world a better place.
Moliere

A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says is never accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something that he can understand.
Bertrand Russell

Television is by nature the dominator drug par excellence. Control of content, uniformity of content, repeatability of content make it inevitably a tool of coersion, brainwashing, and manipulation.
Terence McKenna

To study and not think is a waste. To think and not study is dangerous.
Confucius

Dictatorships foster oppression, dictatorships foster servitude, dictatorships foster cruelty; more abominable is the fact that they foster idiocy.
Jorge Luis Borges

In my mother’s brain, the disease had devastated the garden of memory, but perhaps not yet the palace of dreams. Then, however, death came, and everything collapsed.
Carl William Brown

Many are destined to reason wrongly; others, not to reason at all; and others, to persecute those who do reason.
Voltaire

There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it.
Aldous Huxley

Because there is no man who can be true and just judge of himself, so much will self-love deceive him.
Dante

You cannot have a rational discussion with a man who prefers shooting you to being convinced by you.
Karl Popper

Reason is the root through which the resonant word blossoms.
Hildegard of Bingen

Your emotions are servants, not masters. Keep them in line.
Marcus Aurelius

Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs.
Arthur Schopenhauer

We are all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding.
Rudyard Kipling

Galileo said that mathematics is the language in which the book of nature is written, ignoring the fact that nature has no need of books, nor of mathematics, nor of Galileo.
Carl William Brown

Celui qui serait sage n’aurait pas de fou; celui qui a un fou n’est pas sage; s’il n’est pas sage, il est fou; et peut-être, fût-il roi, le fou de son fou.
Denis Diderot

What sickens me about left-wing people, especially the intellectuals, is their utter ignorance of the way things actually happen.
George Orwell

L’histoire ne vous fournit que des exemples de paix violées, de guerres injustes et cruelles, des champs dévastés de villes réduites en cendres.
Diderot Encyclopédie, article (Paix)

Solitude is the school of genius.
Edward Gibbon

If you are not a master of yourself, then trying to be a master of others is just a substitute to befool yourself, to deceive yourself, and that is what the stupidity consists of.
Osho

There is no pain that the passage of time does not diminish or students. (Nullus pain est quem non longinquitas temporis minuat ac molliat).
Marcus Tullius Cicero

The most stupid thinks that he is very intelligent. Hence you go on giving compliments to each other. All those compliments are lies – and everybody is ready to believe.
Osho

Desiring life, in any case, and to the full extent of this desire, is nothing other than desiring unhappiness; desiring to live is as much as desiring to be unhappy.
Giacomo Leopardi

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.
Voltaire

Inside every cynic is a disappointed idealist.
George Carlin

People are so fucking stupid. No one reads anymore, no one goes out and watches and explores the society and culture they grew up in. People have five-second attention spans and the depth of a glass of water.
David Bowie

A certain darkness is needed to see the stars.
Osho

Lack of judgment is precisely what is called stupidity, and there is absolutely no remedy for this defect. A dull and limited brain, lacking nothing except a suitable measure of intellect and precision in its concepts, can certainly be trained through study, even to the point of achieving erudition. However, since judgment is usually also lacking in such cases, one not infrequently encounters highly erudite men who, in the use of their knowledge, often reveal this incurable defect.
Immanuel Kant

Beginning with the suppression of reason and truth, we must end with the most brutal and violent destruction of all that is human. This is the inevitable consequence of any system that seeks to control thought, to suppress dissent, to impose a single, unchallengeable doctrine.
Karl Popper

Many who are self-taught far excel the doctors, masters, and bachelors of the most renowned universities.
Ludwig von Mises

When a clown seats himself on the throne he does not become a king, the kingdom becomes a circus!
Turkish proverb

If we want to discover what is true, we must be completely free from all religions, all conditioning, all dogmas, all beliefs, and any authority that pushes us to conform; essentially, to be completely alone, and that is very difficult.
Jiddu Krishnamurti

Man is so stupid, unbelievably stupid. He goes on throwing the responsibility on somebody else. Unless you stop this you will never become religious.
Osho

Love is the only sensible and satisfying answer to the problem of human existence.
Erich Fromm

I am not anti-life as other religions are. I am absolutely for life, and life in its essence means love.
Osho

All religions. All this singing. One song. Peace be with you.
Jalal al-Din Rumi

Achieve some perfection yourself, so that you may not fall into sorrow by seeing the perfection in others.
Jalal al-Din Rumi

A little while alone in your room will prove more valuable than anything else that could ever be given you.
Jalal al-Din Rumi

The successful revolutionary is a statesman; the unsuccessful one is a criminal.
Erich Fromm

Humanity will never be religious unless all organized religions disappear and religion becomes an individual commitment towards existence.
Osho

As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.
Jalal al-Din Rumi

Every miserable fool, who has nothing in the world to be proud of, clings to the last resource to be proud of, namely, the nation to which he belongs: in this way he comforts himself and is now full of gratitude and ready to defend tooth and nail all the defects and all the foolishness characteristic of that nation.
Arthur Schopenhauer

To be crazy, some intelligence is needed.
Osho

Essere intelligenti è una maledizione diceva Schopenhauer. Infatti: capisci il gioco, osservi le menzogne, riconosci gli schemi. Ma devi comunque fingerti stupido per sopravvivere.
Arthur Schopenhauer

The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas – uncertainty, progress, change – into crimes.
Salman Rushdie

All religions. All this singing. One song. Peace be with you.
Jalal al-Din Rumi

The first necessity is to realize the evils of the world.
Bertrand Russell

The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.
Carl Gustav Jung

When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate.
Carl Gustav Jung

The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Toleration is the best religion.
Victor Hugo

The Vatican has always been corrupted, first of all by stupidity.
Carl William Brown

It is undesirable to believe a proposition to be true when there is no basis for supposing it to be actually true.
Bertrand Russell

My religion? Well, my dear, I am a Millionaire. That is my religion.
George Bernard Shaw

The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas – uncertainty, progress, change – into crimes.
Salman Rushdie

When it comes to money, everyone is of the same religion.
Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire

With stupidity the gods themselves struggle in vain.
Friedrich von Schiller

God is a person; godliness is a quality. You cannot become God, but you can be godly.
Osho

Man is the only animal for whom his own stupid existence is a problem which he has to try in vain to solve.
Carl William Brown via Eric Fromm

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.
George Bernard Shaw

If a person has known only sex as life, he is stupid, he is an idiot.
Osho

Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds.
Albert Einstein

An anonymous man from the 16th century always used to say: “There are many important things in life, the first is eating, I don’t know the others.”
Carl William Brown

If somebody moves from poverty into spirituality, he has great intelligence. And if someone remains in richness and still does not move towards spirituality, he is just stupid and nothing else.
Osho

The secret of happiness lies in facing the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible.
Bertrand Russell

It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.
Mahatma Gandhi

Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.
Thomas Jefferson

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Independence Day of the American Nation, History, Celebrations, Curiosities, Quotes and Cultural Traditions. The United States of America is celebrating its 250th birthday on Saturday, July 4th, 2026.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
Abraham Lincoln

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.
Thomas Jefferson

Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of life. What would a man not pay for living?
Mahatma Gandhi

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.
Albert Camus

This Independence Day, remind us that we have the freedom to become more culturally competent and free for business, finance and social human sake.
Carl William Brown

He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself.
Thomas Paine

Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.
Benjamin Franklin

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
George Bernard Shaw

Independence Day is annually celebrated on July 4 and is often known as “the Fourth of July”. It is the anniversary of the publication of the declaration of independence from Great Britain in 1776. Patriotic displays and family events are organized throughout the United States. Independence Day is a patriotic public holiday celebrated by Americans worldwide. It is a day off for the general population, and schools and most businesses are closed.

Independence was claimed on July 4, 1776, from Britain, at which time our Democracy was born. We are the “land of the free and home of the brave”. Independence Day is a day of family celebrations with picnics and barbecues, showing a great deal of emphasis on the American tradition of political freedom. Activities associated with the day include watermelon or hotdog eating competitions and sporting events, such as baseball games, three-legged races, swimming activities and tug-of-war games. We are a diverse nation, made up of a variety of dynamic people.

Americans all over the world are gearing themselves up for huge Independence Day celebrations this week, which are now just a few hours away. This year marks the 243rd celebration of the American national holiday, and the day is typically honoured with parties and firework displays across the USA. Usually, a special event is also held at the White House to mark Independence Day, an occasion which is a huge celebration for many across the country.

Always held on July 4, Independence Day commemorates the signing of the Declaration of Independence of the US in 1776. Since Christopher Columbus led a Spanish expedition to the “New World” in 1492, much of what is modern day America was under European rule. Most of North and South America was divided up between the Spanish, English, French, Portuguese and Dutch governments. In 1606, King James I decided to establish permanent settlements in the Americas and formed the Colony of Virginia the following year.

At around the same time, the Dutch, Swedish, and French also established successful North American colonies – but these eventually came under the English crown. In 1732 the Province of Georgia was established and became the 13th colony ruled by the British Empire. In 1782 the British Parliament finally agreed to end all offensive operations in North America and the following year all parties signed the Treaty of Paris in which Great Britain agreed to recognize the sovereignty of the United States and formally end the war. The last British troops departed New York City on November 25, 1783, marking the end of British rule in the new United States.

In 1775, people in New England began fighting the British for their independence. On July 2, 1776, the Congress secretly voted for independence from Great Britain. Two days later, on July 4, 1776, the final wording of the Declaration of Independence was approved, and the document was published. The first public reading of the Declaration of Independence was on July 8, 1776. Delegates began to sign the Declaration of Independence on August 2, 1776. In 1870, Independence Day was made an unpaid holiday for federal employees. In 1941, it became a paid holiday for them.

The first description of how Independence Day would be celebrated was in a letter from John Adams to his wife Abigail on July 3, 1776. He described “pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations” throughout the United States. However, the term “Independence Day” was not used until 1791. Interestingly, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, both signers of the Declaration of Independence and presidents of the United States, died on July 4, 1826 – exactly 50 years after the adoption of the declaration. It is also important to note that Native Americans lived in the country and each tribe had its own nation and government prior to the European settlers.

How is Independence Day celebrated?

Many people display the American flag outside their homes or buildings. Many communities arrange fireworks that are often accompanied by patriotic music. The most impressive fireworks are shown on television. Some employees use one or more of their vacation days to create a long weekend so that they can escape the heat at their favorite beach or vacation spot. Independence Day is a patriotic holiday for celebrating the positive aspects of the United States. Many politicians appear at public events to show their support for the history, heritage and people of their country. Above all, people in the United States express and give thanks for the freedom and liberties fought by the first generation of many of today’s Americans. The Statue of Liberty is a national monument that is associated with Independence Day.

In 1938, July 4 became a national paid holiday and Independence Day is therefore a federal holiday. If July 4 is a Saturday, it is observed on Friday, July 3. If July 4 is a Sunday, it is observed on Monday, July 5. Government offices and schools are closed. Some businesses may be closed as well. In some years, many employees use a proportion of their vacation days to create a long weekend. This can cause congestion in some places, particularly towards popular holiday destinations. There are many public events, parades, shows and fireworks displays. This may cause local disruption to traffic. Public transit systems do not usually operate on their regular timetables.

There are many firework displays around the country, accompanied by parties and parades. Some choose to make the most of not being at work to spend it with their families and friends. Trump blimp ‘twin’ set to crash President’s Independence Day rally. Bristol in Rhode Island has the nation’s longest-running Independence Day celebrations, with festivities taking place since 1785. The festivities there start mid June and conclude with a 2.5 miles military parade on July 4, followed by a ball.

The White House stages a large fireworks celebration and Macy’s fireworks in New York are famously screened across the country. This year, Jennifer Hudson is set to perform at the Macy’s show to celebrate the Wizard of Oz turning 80. According to CNN, the National Retail Foundation estimated that Americans spend $5.32 billion on food for cookouts and picnics to celebrate July 4.

Somewhat controversially, Donald Trump has announced plans for an Independence Day rally dubbed “Salute to America”. The festivities include a military parade – featuring tanks and fighter jets – through the streets of Washington DC, fireworks and a free concert at which thousands are expected to attend. The president has also announced he will address the nation from the Lincoln Memorial on the city’s National Mall.

You can also read:

Independence Day Quotes

Juneteenth or Freedom Day

Here are the major U.S. holidays. In some cases, businesses, government offices, and schools will be closed, and also the International Days list.

New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day
MLK Jr. Day
President’s Day
Valentine’s Day
St. Patrick’s Day
Easter/Spring Break
Mother’s Day
Memorial Day
Father’s Day
4th of July
Labor Day
Halloween
Thanksgiving
Christmas Eve
Christmas Day
International Days List

Quotes by authors

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Independence Day Quotes, Aphorisms, Ideas and Thoughts by Famous Authors, Writers and Politicians on the American Independence Day holiday and celebrations.

It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in that Declaration of Independence.
Abraham Lincoln

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.
Thomas Jefferson

Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of life. What would a man not pay for living?
Mahatma Gandhi

Do not destroy that immortal emblem of humanity, the Declaration of Independence.
Abraham Lincoln

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.
Albert Camus

He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself.
Thomas Paine

Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.
Benjamin Franklin

Freedom is not the right to do what we want, but what we ought. Let us have faith that right makes might and in that faith let us; to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.
Abraham Lincoln

In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free – honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve.
Abraham Lincoln

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty.
Abraham Lincoln

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
Abraham Lincoln

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
George Bernard Shaw

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
George Orwell

Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement.
Nelson Mandela

We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.
William Faulkner

The United States was born in revolution and nurtured by struggle. Throughout our history, the American people have befriended and supported all those who seek independence and a better way of life.
Robert Kennedy

Liberty is maintained by responsible freedom.
Roger W Hancock

Your freedom is brought to you courtesy of the outstanding Men and Women who serve and have served this country with honor, dedication, pride and sacrifice!
Nishan Panwar

Humanity has won its battle. Liberty now has a country.
Marquis de Lafayette

This Independence Day, remind us that we have the freedom to become more culturally competent and free for business, finance and social human sake.
Carl William Brown

Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.
Albert Camus

In the summer of 1776 our Founding Fathers sought to secure our independence and the liberties that remain the foundation of our nation today.
Doc Hastings

God give us peace without peace we are without freedom.
Ellen J. Barrier

Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.
Khalil Gibran

Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.
Louis Brandeis

Liberty, taking the word in its concrete sense, consists in the ability to choose.
Simone Weil

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.
Ronald Reagan

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
John F. Kennedy

Independence doesn’t mean you decide the way you want.
Stephen Breyer

True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.
Samuel Adams

Let freedom never perish in your hands.
Joseph Addison

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.
Thomas Paine

The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.
John F. Kennedy

The unity of freedom has never relied on uniformity of opinion.
John F. Kennedy

Freedom is but the possibility of a various and indefinite activity; while government, or the exercise of dominion, is a single, yet real activity. The longing for freedom, therefore, is at first only too frequently suggested by the deep-felt consciousness of its absence.
Karl Wilhelm Von Humboldt

Freedom lies in being bold.
Robert Frost

Better to die fighting for freedom then be a prisoner all the days of your life.
Bob Marley

Freedom is never given; it is won.
A. Philip Randolph

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.
Thomas Jefferson

Enjoy the peace your valor won. Let independence be our boast, Ever mindful what it cost; Ever grateful for the prize, Let its altar reach the skies!
Joseph Hopkinson

For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.
Nelson Mandela

Independence means enjoying freedom and empowering others too to let them do so.
Vikrmn

You can also read:

Independence Day

Juneteenth or Freedom Day

Quotes by authors

Quotes by arguments

Essays with quotes

Thoughts and reflections

News and events

100 gorgeous quotes and aphorisms by great and famous authors and writers edited for the World of English blog by Carl William Brown, a sincere literary avenger. (Find out more about him on Amazon).

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.
Carl Gustav Jung

Tutte le religioni. Tutto questo canto. Un solo canto. La pace sia con voi.
Jalal al-Din Rumi

Go easy on yourself, for the outcome of all affairs is determined by God’s decree.
Osho

The act of disobedience, as an act of freedom, is the beginning of reason.
Erich Fromm

Man is quite insane. He wouldn’t know how to create a maggot, and he creates Gods by the dozen.
Michel de Montaigne

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.
Jiddu Krishnamurti

Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health.
Carl Gustav Jung

Bravery does not mean being fearless. It means to be full of fear but still not being dominated by it.
Osho

The ancestors. The dead. It is not a mere metaphor, an encrypted message to indicate the unconscious or something like that. When he speaks of the dead, Jung means the dead. And they are present in the images, they continue to live.
Sonu Shamdasani

Governments want efficient technicians, not human beings, because human beings become dangerous to governments – and to organized religions as well. That is why governments and religious organizations seek to control education.
Jiddu Krishnamurti

It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves.
Carl Gustav Jung

There is the music of Heaven in all things.
Hildegard von Bingen

What shall I say, O Muslims? I do not know myself; I am neither Christian, nor Jew, nor Zoroastrian, nor Muslim.
Jalal al-Din Rumi

An idiot with a plan can beat a genius without a plan.
Warren Buffett

If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.
Oscar Wilde

The utter stupidity of humanity and its leaders is also demonstrated by the fact that thousands of atomic bombs have been built without intending to use them; perhaps they are considered a long-term investment.
Carl William Brown

Dancing is when you rise above both worlds, tearing your heart to pieces and giving up your soul.
Jalal al-Din Rumi

Frankly, if a fateful and providential disaster were to wipe out two-thirds of the world’s population, I couldn’t help but be happy. I suffer more when I see a leaf fall from a tree.
Carl William Brown

If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.
Carl Gustav Jung

The development and growth of tools connected to or managed by artificial intelligence proceeds proportionally with the general imbecility of the world population.
Carl William Brown

I have always been of the opinion that unpopularity earned by doing what is right is not unpopularity at all, but glory.
Cicero

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.
Jiddu Krishnamurti

Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.
Jalal al-Din Rumi

Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.
Carl Gustav Jung

As artificial intelligence develops, natural stupidity also increases indiscriminately.
Carl William Brown

All your knowledge is dust. Knowing is your purity, knowledge is dust.
Osho

The cyclical and repetitive essence of matter, while astonishing on the one hand, is also monotonous and boring, comical and pathetic on the other.
Carl William Brown

Hildegard, the human soul is ‘symphonic’; music is part of the profound nature.
Hildegard von Bingen

Nothing is created, nothing is destroyed, but everything is transformed, and in the process, a huge pain in the ass is created.
Carl William Brown

Socialism may begin with the best of intentions, but it always ends with the Gestapo.
Winston Churchill

Anger transformed becomes compassion. Sex transformed becomes prayer. Greed transformed becomes sharing.
Osho

Ai bambini bisogna insegnare a pensare, non cosa pensare.
Margaret Mead

I dropped out of school at age 15 with virtually no money and no education. If I could make big money in the stock market, think about how well you can do. There is no reason you shouldn’t be able to achieve far more than I have.
Mark Minervini

Where the environment is stupid, or prejudiced, or cruel, it is a mark of merit to oppose it.
Bertrand Russell

A man is born to work, to suffer and to fight; he who doesn’t, must perish.
Nikola Tesla

We reject: kings, presidents, and voting. We believe in: rough consensus and running code.
David Clark

Individual imbecility, integrating and adapting to universal stupidity, can generate a certain unconscious and fleeting satisfaction.
Carl William Brown

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.
Denis Diderot

Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because regret is stronger than gratitude.
Anne Frank

The historian, the futurist, the surrealist, and the nihilist move in environments that do not exist, following the trail of death and stupidity.
Carl William Brown

Mathematics is just a language, and as such, it’s conventional, arbitrary, and capable of expressing a lot of bullshit.
Carl William Brown

But the devil was so tired that he left everything to men, who knew how to do things better than he did.
Leonardo Sciascia

Social life is a distraction, real intelligence thrives in isolation.
Nikola Tesla

War in Iran, China offers the Islamic regime the following sacred texts: The Art of War (Sun Tzu), Tao Te Ching (Lao Tzu), The Analects (Confucius), the Bible (Various Authors), all accompanied by a huge load of pork.
Carl William Brown

C’è la musica del Cielo in tutte le cose.
Ildegarda di Bingen

Why look for conspiracy when stupidity explains so much.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed.
Albert Einstein

I have great faith in fools, – self-confidence my friends will call it.
Edgar Allan Poe

Wealth and poverty do not lie in a person’s estate, but in their souls.
Antisthenes

If you want to avoid seeing an idiot, break the mirror.
Francois Rabelais

Civilized man has traded a portion of his chance for happiness for a measure of security.
Sigmund Freud

The man who never alters his opinions is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.
William Blake

What shall I say, O Muslims, I know not myself, I am neither a Christian, nor a Jew, nor a Zoroastrian, nor a Muslim.
Jalal al-Din Rumi

The father of modern stress research, Hans Seyle, claims that stress doesn’t depend so much on what happens, but on how we interpret it. That may be true, but I wish him every possible misfortune, and then we’ll see.
Carl William Brown

After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands.
Friedrich Nietzsche

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.
Virginia Woolf

You must also give mental and physical fitness priority.
Jim Otto

The human body is the best picture of the human soul.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

Exercise should be regarded as tribute to the heart.
Gene Tunney

In health there is freedom. Health is the first of all liberties.
Henri Frederic Amiel

The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.
Hannah Arendt

I am not a glutton – I am an explorer of food.
Erma Bombeck

Reason is the root, through which the resonant word flourishes.
Hildegard von Bingen

Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop.
Jalal al-Din Rumi

Dare to declare who you are. It is not far from the shores of silence to the boundaries of speech.
Hildegard von Bingen

Syncretinism is the most updated keyword of the modern catholic church.
Carl William Brown

A nation that displays the shitty faces of poor religious idiots on the walls of its cities must by strict logic necessarily be destroyed, never mind the international law of stupidity.
Carl William Brown

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Those who lack a certain amount of free time are cut off from many of the best things.
Bertrand Russell

Wise men argue cases, fools decide them.
Anacharsis

If you don’t become aware of the three idiots within you, you will never become a sage. It is by overcoming the three idiots that one truly becomes wise.
Osho

Be kind and honest, and harmful poisons will turn sweet inside you.
Jalal al-Din Rumi

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.
Marcus Aurelius

Religions are the cradles of despotism.
Marquis De Sade

To become a popular religion, it is only necessary for a superstition to enslave a philosophy.
Dean William R. Inge

The common man with extraordinary power represents the greatest danger to humanity, not the demon or the sadist.
Erich Fromm

I am always most religious upon a sunshiny day…
Lord Byron

The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.
Carl Gustav Jung

We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that stupid people won’t be offended.
Morgan Freeman

Beware of being too rational. In the country of the insane, the integrated man doesn’t become king. He gets lynched.
Aldous Huxley

Religion is the opium of the masses.
Karl Marx

Religion: a daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
Ambrose Bierce

A mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than citizens, and lives with them and invites them to his table.
Aristotle

A person who lives in a sort of sleep can never be intelligent – and awareness is the purest flame of intelligence.
Osho

El Estado es una banda de ladrones, compuesta por los individuos más inmorales, codiciosos y sin escrúpulos de cada sociedad.
Murray Rothbard

The beautiful is nothing but the terrible at its beginning (Denn das Schöne ist nichts / als des Schrecklichen Anfang.
Rainer Maria Rilke

Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important.
Thomas Eliot

A demagogue must be neither an educated nor an honest man; he has to be an ignoramus and a rogue.
Aristophanes

A large part of mankind is angry not with the sins, but with the sinners.
Seneca

I have found God, but he is insufficient.
Henry Miller

In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made school boards.
Mark Twain

El Estado es peor que una mafia. Es más grande, más criminal y además tiene escuelas. Una mafia normal te roba y te deja en paz.
Miguel Anxo Bastos

Religion is man’s twisted thinking, out of which temples are erected to realize it.
Jiddu Krishnamurti

Unless a person is stupid he cannot be a politician. It is not that the politicians are stupid – in fact, only stupid people are attracted towards politics.
Osho

Human biological weakness is the condition of human culture.
Erich Fromm

The word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.
Carl Gustav Jung

Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very fast.
Thomas Jefferson

To keep the body in good health is a duty… otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.
Buddha

Much learning does not teach understanding.
Heraclitus

God cannot be an object. It is deepest depth of your own being. How can you see it.
Osho

Thou shouldst eat to live; not live to eat.
Marcus T. Cicero

A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety.
Aesop

The first wealth is health.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.
Marcus Aurelius

A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them.
Carl Gustav Jung

The world is full of tragic or comic, heroic or bizarre or surprising things, and those who fail to engage with the spectacle it offers miss one of life’s privileges.
Bertrand Russell

The only truly rich are those who desire no more than they already possess.
Erich Fromm

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Carl Gustav Jung best quotes and aphorisms, ideas, thoughts, maxims, and pearls of wisdom from the great Swiss psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, anthropologist, and philosopher.

Like mists arising from a marsh, the dead came near and cried: Speak further unto us concerning the supreme god. Hard to know is the deity of Abraxas. Its power is the greatest, because man perceiveth it not. From the sun he draweth the summum bonum; from the devil the infimum malum: but from Abraxas LIFE, altogether indefinite, the mother of good and evil.
Carl Gustav Jung Septem Sermones ad Mortuos. 1916

A collection of a hundred Great brains makes one big fathead.
Carl Gustav Jung

A human being would certainly not grow to be seventy or eighty years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species. The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life’s morning.
Carl Gustav Jung

A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them.
Carl Gustav Jung

A particularly beautiful woman is a source of terror. As a rule, a beautiful woman is a terrible disappointment.
Carl Gustav Jung

A ‘scream’ is always just that – a noise and not music.
Carl Gustav Jung

All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What right have we then to depreciate imagination.
Carl Gustav Jung

An inflated consciousness is always egocentric and conscious of nothing but its own existence. It is incapable of learning from the past, incapable of understanding contemporary events, and incapable of drawing right conclusions about the future. It is hypnotized by itself and therefore cannot be argued with. It inevitably dooms itself to calamities that must strike it dead.
Carl Gustav Jung

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.
Carl Gustav Jung

Caution has its place, no doubt, but we cannot refuse our support to a serious venture challenging the whole of the personality. If we oppose it, we are trying to suppress what is best in man – his daring and his aspirations. Should we succeed, we should only have stood in the way of that invaluable experience which might have given a meaning to life. What would have happened if Paul had allowed himself to be talked out of his journey to Damascus?
Carl Gustav Jung

Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk.
Carl Gustav Jung

Creative powers can just as easily turn out to be destructive. It rests solely with the moral personality whether they apply themselves to good things or to bad. And if this is lacking, no teacher can supply it or take its place.
Carl Gustav Jung

Dreams are the guiding words of the soul. Why should I henceforth not love my dreams and not make their riddling images into objects of my daily consideration?
Carl Gustav Jung

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.
Carl Gustav Jung

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.
Carl Gustav Jung

Everyone knows nowadays that people ‘have complexes’. What is not so well known, though far more important theoretically, is that complexes can have us.
Carl Gustav Jung

A dream that, despite being manifest, does not interpret itself, and never has a clear meaning. No dream says, “You must,” or “This is the truth.” It presents an image, like nature makes a plant grow, and we must draw the consequences.
Carl Gustav Jung

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
Carl Gustav Jung

Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own.
Carl Gustav Jung

For a young person, it is almost a sin, or at least a danger, to be too preoccupied with himself; but for the ageing person, it is a duty and a necessity to devote serious attention to himself.
Carl Gustav Jung

From the middle of life onward, only he remains vitally alive who is ready to die with life.
Carl Gustav Jung

I cannot love anyone if I hate myself. That is the reason why we feel so extremely uncomfortable in the presence of people who are noted for their special virtuousness, for they radiate an atmosphere of the torture they inflict on themselves. That is not a virtue but a vice.
Carl Gustav Jung

I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among those in the second half of life – that is to say, over 35 – there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life.
Carl Gustav Jung

If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.
Carl Gustav Jung

If people can be educated to see the lowly side of their own natures, it may be hoped that they will also learn to understand and to love their fellow men better. A little less hypocrisy and a little more tolerance towards oneself can only have good results in respect for our neighbor; for we are all too prone to transfer to our fellows the injustice and violence we inflict upon our own natures.
Carl Gustav Jung

If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.
Carl Gustav Jung

In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.
Carl Gustav Jung

It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves.
Carl Gustav Jung

It is a fact that cannot be denied: the wickedness of others becomes our own wickedness because it kindles something evil in our own hearts.
Carl Gustav Jung

It is on the whole probable that we continually dream, but that consciousness makes such a noise that we do not hear it.
Carl Gustav Jung

Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.
Carl Gustav Jung

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.
Carl Gustav Jung

Life not lived is a disease from which one can die.
Carl Gustav Jung

Man is not a machine that can be remodelled for quite other purposes as occasion demands, in the hope that it will go on functioning as regularly as before but in a quite different way. He carries his whole history with him; in his very structure is written the history of mankind.
Carl Gustav Jung

Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health.
Carl Gustav Jung

Masses are always breeding grounds of psychic epidemics.
Carl Gustav Jung

Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not.
Carl Gustav Jung

Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.
Carl Gustav Jung

Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.
Carl Gustav Jung

A dream that, despite being manifest, does not interpret itself, and never has a clear meaning. No dream says, “You must,” or “This is the truth.” It presents an image, like nature makes a plant grow, and we must draw the consequences.
Carl Gustav Jung

Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.
Carl Gustav Jung

Nothing is more repulsive than a furtively prurient spirituality; it is just as unsavory as gross sensuality.
Carl Gustav Jung

Observance of customs and laws can very easily be a cloak for a lie so subtle that our fellow human beings are unable to detect it.
Carl Gustav Jung

Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.
Carl Gustav Jung

One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.
Carl Gustav Jung

Our blight is ideologies – they are the long-expected Antichrist!
Carl Gustav Jung

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.
Carl Gustav Jung

Psychoanalysis cannot be considered a method of education if by education we mean the topiary art of clipping a tree into a beautiful artificial shape. But those who have a higher conception of education will prize most the method of cultivating a tree so that it fulfils to perfection its own natural conditions of growth.
Carl Gustav Jung

Resistance to the organized mass can be effected only by the man who is as well organized in his individuality as the mass itself.
Carl Gustav Jung

Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.
Carl Gustav Jung

Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose.
Carl Gustav Jung

Sometimes, indeed, there is such a discrepancy between the genius and his human qualities that one has to ask oneself whether a little less talent might not have been better.
Carl Gustav Jung

The achievements which society rewards are won at the cost of diminution of personality
Carl Gustav Jung

The Christian missionary may preach the gospel to the poor naked heathen, but the spiritual heathen who populate Europe have as yet heard nothing of Christianity.
Carl Gustav Jung

The Christ-symbol is of the greatest importance for psychology in so far as it is perhaps the most highly developed and differentiated symbol of the self, apart from the figure of the Buddha.
Carl Gustav Jung

The cinema, like the detective story, makes it possible to experience without danger all the excitement, passion and desirousness which must be repressed in a humanitarian ordering of life.
Carl Gustav Jung

The collective unconscious consists of the sum of the instincts and their correlates, the archetypes. Just as everybody possesses instincts, so he also possesses a stock of archetypal images.
Carl Gustav Jung

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.
Carl Gustav Jung

The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.
Carl Gustav Jung

The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.
Carl Gustav Jung

The difference between a good life and a bad life is how well you walk through the fire.
Carl Gustav Jung

The educated man tries to repress the inferior one in himself, without realizing that by this he forces the latter to become revolutionary.
Carl Gustav Jung

The greatest and most important problems in life are all in a certain sense insoluble. They can never be solved, but only outgrown.
Carl Gustav Jung

The healthy man does not torture others – generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.
Carl Gustav Jung

The heaping together of paintings by Old Masters in museums is a catastrophe; likewise, a collection of a hundred Great Brains makes one big fathead.
Carl Gustav Jung

The images of the unconscious place a great responsibility upon a man. Failure to understand them, or a shirking of ethical responsibility, deprives him of his wholeness and imposes a painful fragmentariness on his life.
Carl Gustav Jung

The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.
Carl Gustav Jung

The man who promises everything is sure to fulfil nothing, and everyone who promises too much is in danger of using evil means in order to carry out his promises, and is already on the road to perdition.
Carl Gustav Jung

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.
Carl Gustav Jung

The most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed. It is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration which are needed to produce valuable and lasting results.
Carl Gustav Jung

The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.
Carl Gustav Jung

The only thing we have to fear on this planet is man.
Carl Gustav Jung

The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.
Carl Gustav Jung

The primary cause of unhappiness in the world today is… lack of faith.
Carl Gustav Jung

The psychotherapist learns little or nothing from his successes. They mainly confirm him in his mistakes, while his failures, on the other hand, are priceless experiences in that they not only open up the way to a deeper truth, but force him to change his views and methods.
Carl Gustav Jung

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.
Carl Gustav Jung

The wine of youth does not always clear with advancing years; sometimes it grows turbid.
Carl Gustav Jung

The wise man who is not heeded is counted a fool, and the fool who proclaims the general folly first and loudest passes for a prophet and Fuhrer, and sometimes it is luckily the other way round as well, or else mankind would long since have perished of stupidity.
Carl Gustav Jung

The word “belief” is a difficult thing for me. I don’t believe. I must have a reason for a certain hypothesis. Either I know a thing, and then I know it – I don’t need to believe it.
Carl Gustav Jung

The word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.
Carl Gustav Jung

There can be no transforming of darkness into light, and of apathy into movement, without emotion.
Carl Gustav Jung

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.
Carl Gustav Jung

There is no such thing as a pure introvert or extrovert. Such a person would be in the lunatic asylum.
Carl Gustav Jung

Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.
Carl Gustav Jung

We are all born originals and die copies.
Carl Gustav Jung

We are born at a given moment, in a given place and, like vintage years of wine, we have the qualities of the year and of the season of which we are born. Astrology does not lay claim to anything more.
Carl Gustav Jung

We cannot change anything unless we accept it.
Carl Gustav Jung

We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.
Carl Gustav Jung

We deem those happy who from the experience of life have learnt to bear its ills without being overcome by them.
Carl Gustav Jung

We should know what our convictions are, and stand for them. Upon one’s own philosophy, conscious or unconscious, depends one’s ultimate interpretation of facts. Therefore it is wise to be as clear as possible about one’s subjective principles. As the man is, so will be his ultimate truth.
Carl Gustav Jung

We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect. The judgement of the intellect is only part of the truth.
Carl Gustav Jung

We survive by what we receive, but we live by what we give.
Carl Gustav Jung

When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate.
Carl Gustav Jung

Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.
Carl Gustav Jung

Who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books, but lives in our very blood?
Carl Gustav Jung

Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable.
Carl Gustav Jung

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
Carl Gustav Jung

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Osho thoughts on stupidity, some quotes and various reflections on intelligence versus stupidity with references to B. Russell, governments and politicians.

Osho’s reflections on Bertrand Russell and stupidity center on the distinction between accumulated knowledge and authentic, living intelligence. He viewed Russell as a highly intellectual man restricted by his reliance on logic, and perceived human stupidity not as a lack of information, but as a state of unconsciousness and rigid adherence to the past. Osho acknowledged Russell’s high intelligence but highlighted his inability to accept certain religious concepts (such as the virgin birth) due to his strictly scientific and logical mind. Osho argued that Russell, while intelligent, was unable to grasp the mystical dimension of truth because he was a philosopher rather than a mystic. Osho felt that individuals like Russell collected points of argument (as in Why I am Not a Christian) but remained trapped within the rational mind, which cannot access true meditation. Osho defined stupidity not as lower IQ, but as living in a state of “sleep,” unawareness, and routine.

Osho insisted that knowledgeable people (those with degrees, degrees, and extensive memory) are often the most stupid, as they use knowledge to hide their lack of being. Stupid minds operate based on past programming, ready-made answers, and fear of the unknown. Osho taught that recognizing one’s own stupidity is the first ray of intelligence. “To understand that one is stupid is to already be intelligent”. Osho proclaimed a need for a revolution against human stupidity, which he believed was leading humanity toward destruction through unconsciousness, environmental ruin, and war.In essence, Osho argued that the only way beyond stupidity is through awareness and meditation, which allow an individual to move from a “knowledgeable mind” to a “conscious being”.

In INTELLIGENCE: The Creative Response to Now, Osho challenges the common conception that the best way to promote intelligence is to train the intellect. Intellect is logical, he says; intelligence is paradoxical. Intellect takes things apart to see how they work; intelligence puts things together to see the functioning of the whole. When our education systems put too much emphasis on developing intellect, an imbalance is created and both the individual and the society suffer. It is only through intelligence that we can respond creatively to the challenges of a changing world. By exploring the distinction between intellect and intelligence, INTELLIGENCE encourages readers to be more aware of how they approach problems – logical, emotional, and practical – and how they solve them.

The coming revolution in the world is not going to be of the poor against the rich, the proletariat against the bourgeois. The coming revolution in the world is going to be between the stupidity of humanity and the intelligentsia.
Osho

To be crazy, some intelligence is needed.
Osho

You will always find stupid, ignorant people very dogmatic. The more ignorant a person is, the more dogmatic. This is one of the greatest misfortunes in the world, that the foolish are absolutely certain, and the wise are hesitant. Buddha is very hesitant.
Osho

If somebody moves from poverty into spirituality, he has great intelligence. And if someone remains in richness and still does not move towards spirituality, he is just stupid and nothing else.
Osho

If you don’t become aware of the three idiots within you, you will never become a sage. It is by overcoming the three idiots that one truly becomes wise.
Osho

Stupid people ask about God, the intelligent person asks about death. The people who go on asking about God never find God, and the person who asks about death is bound to find God
Osho

A person who lives in a sort of sleep can never be intelligent – and awareness is the purest flame of intelligence.
Osho

Man is so stupid, unbelievably stupid. He goes on throwing the responsibility on somebody else. Unless you stop this you will never become religious.
Osho

Unless a person is stupid he cannot be a politician. It is not that the politicians are stupid – in fact, only stupid people are attracted towards politics.
Osho

Stupidity has always the shadow of meanness. The more intelligent you are, the less mean you are. The utterly intelligent person cannot have any meanness; it is impossible. He can have only love and compassion. The stupid person has to be mean because that is the only way he thinks he can win.
Osho

The most stupid thinks that he is very intelligent. Hence you go on giving compliments to each other. All those compliments are lies – and everybody is ready to believe.
Osho

The intelligent person is rebellious. He does not allow others to decide for him; he keeps the right to himself. Hence, stupid people become saints very easily because they allow the society to condition them.
Osho

The group is always ruled by the stupid person. The stupid cannot become intelligent, but the intelligent can relapse easily and become stupid. Have you seen any stupid person doing anything intelligent ever? But you have seen many intelligent people doing stupid actions, foolish actions.
Osho

If a person has known only sex as life, he is stupid, he is an idiot.
Osho

If you are not a master of yourself, then trying to be a master of others is just a substitute to befool yourself, to deceive yourself, and that is what the stupidity consists of.
Osho

The mediocre mind never allows the genius; the mediocre person is happy with other mediocre people. The stupid people are happy with stupid leaders. The more stupid the leader is, the more people are happy – because he looks so much like them.
Osho

A dishonest life cannot be a life of bliss. You think you are deceiving others; you are simply destroying yourself and destroying all possibilities of growth, because growth comes through sincerity, honesty, authenticity. Growth comes through accepting your truth in its total nudity. And then life is certainly a joy, then life is certainly a bliss. But you cannot expect anything else from a scholar. A scholar is bound to be stupid, otherwise why should he be a scholar in the first place? An intelligent person will seek and search for truth. He will not bother about Mahayana sutras and scriptures. I have no respect for scholarship.
Osho

By the time a person becomes old he becomes very cunning – not wise, not intelligent. Remember: if you were stupid when you were a child you will be more stupid when you are old. You will have a long, long-rooted stupidity in you with great foliage and flowers and fruits. Whatsoever you have will grow with your age. If you meditate then meditation will grow. But just by becoming old you cannot be wise.
Osho

Desires are never fulfilled. In the very nature of things they cannot be fulfilled. The wakeful person looks into the desiring mind and laughs. The desiring mind is the most stupid mind, because it is desiring something which cannot be fulfilled in the very nature of things. Just as you cannot get oil through sand – you can go on and on working on the sand, but you will not get oil out of it, it does not exist in the sand, it is impossible – exactly like that, desire is just a deception.
Osho

If you follow the fool’s way, you can become very rich, you can become famous. You can become a president of a country, a prime minister of a country – you can become anything. You can have as much wealth as you want – just follow the fool’s way. Don’t be intelligent, remain stupid, because in fact, except for a stupid person who wants to run after money? Yes, sometimes it happens, money comes to the intelligent person, but it comes running after him, he does not go… Fame also sometimes comes to the intelligent person. It comes on its own; he is not interested at all.
Osho

Man is so stupid, unbelievably stupid. He goes on throwing the responsibility on somebody else. Unless you stop this you will never become religious. A religious person is one who takes the responsibility upon himself. The first thing that is making you miserable is your desiring, constant desiring for this and that. Stop that. And when there is no desire there are no thoughts either. The function of the thoughts is to help you desire; they are instrumental. If you don’t have desires, thoughts are bound to disappear of their own accord. And when there are no desires, no thoughts… YOU ARE STILL. You are calm, collected, centered, rooted.
Osho

Money is not bad in itself. That’s my basic approach towards existence: money is neutral, it depends on you. In the hands of a man of understanding, money is tremendously beautiful. It can become music, it can become art, it can become science, it can become religion. It is not money that is bad, it is the person. The stupid person, if he has money, does not know what to do with it; his money creates more greed. Money can free you from greed, but the stupid person changes money into more greed. It becomes anger, it becomes sexuality, it becomes lust. The more money the stupid person has, the more stupid he becomes, because he becomes more powerful to do stupid things. With the wise, everything is transformed into wisdom.
Osho

Real intelligence is needed to move from the world of doing to the world of being. If somebody moves from poverty into spirituality, he has great intelligence. And if someone remains in richness and still does not move towards spirituality, he is just stupid and nothing else. Being rich and not being aware of spirituality is stupidity. Being poor and not being aware of spirituality can be forgiven, but the rich person cannot be forgiven – because he HAS – can’t he see that he has everything and yet he has nothing? Death will be coming and it will take all that he possesses. Doing is a means to having. When doing succeeds, you have. But when you have, everything starts failing, everything starts looking futile, everything starts looking childish. And to know that everything in this world is futile is the beginning of turning in, of conversion.
Osho

Somebody says to you, “How beautiful you are!” and you believe it immediately. Nobody ever objects. I have told it to many people; nobody ever objects. I have never come across a person who will object, “No, you are wrong because I know my face. I see it in the mirror every day.” You say it to anybody, even the ugliest. Say it to a camel, and he will nod his head. He will say, “Right. I had always known it. You are the first intelligent person who has given it recognition.” Even the ugliest person deep down thinks he is beautiful. He believes, otherwise it will be difficult to exist, to live. The most stupid thinks that he is very intelligent. Hence you go on giving compliments to each other. All those compliments are lies – and everybody is ready to believe. And it is not only in the ordinary life. When you enter into your inner journey, there also you expect recognition.
Osho

Stupid people ask about God, the intelligent person asks about death. The people who go on asking about God never find God, and the person who asks about death is bound to find God – because it is death that transforms you, your vision. Your consciousness is sharpened because you have raised a real question, an authentic question, the most important question of life. You have created such a great challenge that you can’t remain asleep for long; you will have to be awake, you will have to be alert enough to encounter the reality of death.
Osho

The intelligent person is rebellious. He does not allow others to decide for him; he keeps the right to himself. Hence, stupid people become saints very easily because they allow the society to condition them. At least in that particular society they will be very much respected. To others they will look very stupid, to others they will look insane, but to that particular society which has conditioned them they will be great saints.
Osho

The unintelligent person lives like driftwood; he becomes so much concerned with sightseeing that he forgets all about the ultimate, he forgets all about the goal, he forgets all about the journey. He becomes too absorbed in sightseeing. He is curious but his curiosity is superfluous. He never inquires, because inquiry needs guts, inquiry is risky. Inquiry means you will be facing great problems, you will be coming across ultimate problems, and who knows whether you will be able to solve them or not? He remains only curious. The curious person is the stupid person; his curiosity keeps him occupied, his curiosity keeps him engaged, so he never becomes aware of the real problems.
Osho

There is no greater magic than meditation. To transform the negative into the positive, to transform darkness into light, that is the miracle of meditation. To transform a trembling person into a fearless soul, to transform a person who was clinging to every stupid thing into a nonclinger, into a nonpossessor, that is what happens through meditation. Buddha used to call meditation a great sword, it cuts your problems at the very root. It makes you aware that you need not be afraid of your inner abyss. It is beautiful, it is blissful. You have not experienced its bliss and beauty because you have never gone into it, you have always been escaping. You have not tasted of it; it is nectar, it is not poison. But how are you going to know without tasting it? You are running away from something which can become your life’s fulfillment. You are running away from something which is the only thing worth achieving. You are running away from yourself.
Osho

Unless a person is stupid he cannot be a politician. It is not that the politicians are stupid – in fact, only stupid people are attracted towards politics. What is politics basically? The desire to dominate others – and that is the most stupid thing in life. The intelligent person tries to be a master of himself, and the stupid person tries to be master of others. And how can you be a master of others if you are not a master of yourself? If you are not a master of yourself, then trying to be a master of others is just a substitute to befool yourself, to deceive yourself, and that is what the stupidity consists of.
Osho

Your love affairs are so stupid. And then you are waiting for something great to happen out of them. In the first place you don’t have any love in your heart. That’s why everybody wants to be loved. You want to be loved; your woman also wants to be loved. Naturally there is conflict: both are ready to take and nobody is ready to give. And how to give? You don’t have it in the first place. Only a loving person – one who is already loving – can find the right partner. This is my observation: if you are unhappy you will find somebody who is unhappy. Unhappy people are attracted towards unhappy people. And it is good, it is natural. It is good that the unhappy people are not attracted towards happy people; otherwise they will destroy their happiness. It is perfectly okay. Only happy people are attracted towards happy people. The same attracts the same. Intelligent people are attracted towards intelligent people; stupid people are attracted towards stupid people.
Osho

A person who lives in a sort of sleep can never be intelligent – and awareness is the purest flame of intelligence. A man who lives in sleep becomes more and more stupid. If you live in stupor, you will become stupid, you will become dull. This dullness has to be destroyed. And it can be destroyed only by becoming more aware. Walk with more awareness. Eat with more awareness. Talk with more awareness. Listen with more awareness.
Osho

I would like this country to become rich, scientific, technological, healthy, well nourished – not only this country but the whole of humanity. And I don’t see that it is against religion. On the contrary: the more rich a country is, the more religious it can become – because richness gives you opportunity, richness gives you facility, richness gives you time and space and energy, to move inwards. If you don’t move, that’s your responsibility. Nothing is wrong in being rich. If a rich person is not religious, he is simply mediocre, stupid; it is nothing against richness: it is simply an indication that he is foolish. If a rich person is not religious, I call him stupid; and if a poor person is religious, I call him intelligent, really intelligent. Rare intelligence is needed for the poor man to become religious. When a Kabir becomes religious he shows more intelligence than Buddha himself – because it is impossible, almost impossible to become religious when you are poor. When you have not known what riches are, how can you get beyond them? One can go beyond a certain thing only when it has been experienced; it is only through experience that one surpasses and transcends. If somebody transcends without experiencing something, that simply means that he has such intelligence that he learns from others’ experiences; he need not go into all those things on his own.
Osho

It needs intelligence to be happy, and people are taught to remain unintelligent. The society does not want intelligence to flower. The society does not need intelligence; in fact it is very much afraid of intelligence. The society needs stupid people. Why? – because stupid people are manageable. Intelligent people are not necessarily obedient – they may obey, they may not obey. But the stupid person cannot disobey; he is always ready to be commanded. The stupid person needs somebody to command him, because he has no intelligence to live on his own. He wants somebody to direct him; he seeks and searches his own tyrants.
Osho

Stupidity has always the shadow of meanness. The more intelligent you are, the less mean you are. The utterly intelligent person cannot have any meanness; it is impossible. He can have only love and compassion. The stupid person has to be mean because that is the only way he thinks he can win. The intelligent person has no desire to win, the intelligent person is already victorious in his intelligence. The intelligent person is already superior in his intelligence, he has not to compete for it. The stupid person has to continuously compete. And because he is stupid, he cannot rely on his intelligence, he has to rely on something else: he becomes mean, cunning, deceptive, a hypocrite. To me, stupidity is the only sin, and everything else is just a by-product of it. And intelligence is the only virtue; everything else that we have known as virtue follows it like a shadow.
Osho

The false silence, the pseudo silence, is simply dull. You can see it. If a stupid person is sitting there – an idiot, an imbecile – you will feel a certain silence around him; it is the same silence as you can feel near a cemetery. He has a space around him which is very dull. He seems to be very indifferent to the world, not in contact at all, disconnected; he is sitting there – like a lump of mud. There is no vibration around him of any life, of any energy; there is nothing streaming around him. This is not real silence. He is simply stupid. When you come close to a Buddha, he is silent because of his intelligence, he is silent because of his awareness, he is silent, not because he has forced himself to be silent, he is silent simply because he has understood the pointlessness of being disturbed in any way. He is silent because he has understood that there is no point in being worried and there is no point in being tense. His silence is out of understanding. It is overflowing understanding. When you come near a Buddha you will have a totally different fragrance – the fragrance of consciousness.
Osho

The group is always ruled by the stupid person. The stupid cannot become intelligent, but the intelligent can relapse easily and become stupid. Have you seen any stupid person doing anything intelligent ever? But you have seen many intelligent people doing stupid actions, foolish actions. You can become any moment foolish, but it is not so easy to become any moment wise. A foolish person is very consistent — he remains foolish. He cannot sometimes be wise, it is impossible. But a wise person is not so consistent; sometimes he relapses, becomes foolish. There are foolish moments in his life. There are holidays in his life when he relaxes a little and does not bother about his wisdom. If you are tied to a person who is lower than you in evolution, then you will have to walk with that person. Of course he cannot walk with you. Hence I say I also believe in the rule, but I interpret it in a different way. The rule is perfectly true – THE GROUP ONLY GETS AS HIGH AS ITS LOWEST MEMBER. So if you want to get high, please remember – never become a member of any group. Remember to remain individuals. Then you are free to move at your own pace. Then you are totally free to move alone. In a group you are tied. And of course, stupid people tend to make groups because alone they cannot rely on themselves. They are afraid, they don’t have any intelligence. They know that alone they will be lost. They tend to make groups, crowds. So whenever a church exists, whenever a sect exists, ninety-nine percent it consists of fools. It has to be so. They decide policies of religion, politics and everything. Beware of this mobocracy and be alert.
Osho

The intelligent person does not cling to the dead past, does not carry corpses. Howsoever beautiful they have been, howsoever precious, he does not carry the corpses. He is finished with the past; it is gone, and it is gone forever. But the foolish person is traditional. He is ready to follow the priest, ready to follow any stupid politician, ready to follow any order – anybody with authority and he is ready to fall at his feet. Without intelligence there can be no happiness. Man can only be happy if he is intelligent, utterly intelligent. Meditation is a device to release your intelligence. The more meditative you become, the more intelligent you become. But remember, by intelligence I don’t mean intellectuality. Intellectuality is part of stupidity. Intelligence is a totally different phenomenon, it has nothing to do with the head. Intelligence is something that comes from your very center. It wells up in you, and with it many things start growing in you. You become happy, you become creative, you become rebellious, you become adventurous, you start loving insecurity, you start moving into the unknown. You start living dangerously, because that is the only way to live.
Osho

To be crazy, some intelligence is needed. To be just a part of the collective, no intelligence is needed – any stupid person can become a perfect citizen. In fact, the more stupid you are, the more obedient you will be, the less rebellious you will be. Always you will be ready to fall in line with any fool who comes to command. Anybody who shouts loudly, you will fall into his feet; he will become your leader. But to be an individual you need intelligence, sharp consciousness, because it is very difficult to live an individual life. Surrounded by so many stupid people, surrounded by the crowd, surrounded by the dull and the dead, it is very difficult to remain alive, throbbing, streaming. Then you are very alone.
Osho

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