enlightenment

True education is enlightenment.

It is the task of the enlightened not only to ascend to learning and to see the good but to be willing to descend again to those prisoners and to share their troubles and their honors, whether they are worth having or not. And this they must do, even with the prospect of death.

In so many ways we are still in the dark ages, but there is light appearing over the horizon of choice and consciousness.

Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light.

Education leads to enlightenment. Enlightenment opens the way to empathy. Empathy foreshadows reform.

Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.

In his face there came to be a brooding peace that is seen most often in the faces of the very sorrowful or the very wise. But still he wandered through the streets of the town, always silent and alone.

Truth is not fully explosive, but purely electric. You don't blow the world up with the truth; you shock it into motion.

The more you know, the less you talk. The less you talk, the more you know.

The true definition of mental illness is when the majority of your time is spent in the past or future, but rarely living in the realism of NOW.

So the paradox goes: No man who is really ignorant is ever aware that he is ignorant. That is its finest, most faulty manifestation; there can be no true ignorance without first some claim of intelligence or consciousness, or superiority or enlightenment.

Innocence is the beginning of ignorance. Experience is the end of stupidity.

Do not give them a candle to light the way, teach them how to make fire instead. That is the meaning of enlightenment.

We need enlightenment, not just individually but collectively, to save the planet. We need to awaken ourselves. We need to practice mindfulness if we want to have a future, if we want to save ourselves and the planet.

It is our responsibility to enlighten our people.

It is not the simple statement of facts that ushers in freedom; it is the constant repetition of them that has this liberating effect. Tolerance is the result not of enlightenment, but of boredom.

Enlightenment values of individual freedom are manifested best in individual acts of criticism and defiance.

Our society is the product of several great religious and philosophical traditions. The ideas of the Greeks and Romans, Christianity, Judaism, humanism and the Enlightenment have made us who we are.