Can one alter oneยดs chief feature?" asked someone else. First it is necessary to know it. If you know it, much will depend on the quality of your knowing. If you know it well, then it is possible to change it.
P.D. OuspenskyI felt that on a basis of a "search for the miraculous" it would be possible to unite together a very large number of people who were no longer able to swallow the customary forms of lying and living in lying.
P.D. OuspenskyThere is no tyranny more ferocious than the tyranny of morality. Everything is sacrificed to it.
P.D. OuspenskyMany things are mechanical and should remain mechanical. But mechanical thoughts, mechanical feelingsโthat is what has to be studied and can and should be changed. Mechanical thinking is not worth a penny. You can think about many things mechanically, but you will get nothing from it.
P.D. OuspenskyMan is a machine which reacts blindly to external forces and, this being so, he has no will, and very little control of himself, if any at all. What we have to study, therefore, is not psychology-for that applies only to a developed man-but mechanics. Man is not only a machine but a machine which works very much below the standard it would be capable of maintaining if it were working properly.
P.D. Ouspensky