In light of the fact that we’ve recently launched thirty Challenges to Enlightenment — our epic self-actualization course — it’s fitting to showcase some of the most inspiring quotes I’ve found about the nature of awakening.
Explore these linguistic gems slow. Enjoy the words and consider deeply the many implications and meanings.
Below, you’ll find our collection of wise, inspirational, and funny old quotes from the Enlightenment period, enlightenment slang, and enlightenment sayings drawn from various sources.
1. Enlightenment is the key to everything, and it is the key to intimacy, because it is the goal of true authenticity. -Marianne Williamson
2. The real meaning of enlightenment is to gaze with undimmed eyes on all darkness.-Nikos Kazantzakis
3. Enlightenment must come little by little – otherwise it would overwhelm.-Idries Shah
4. Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment.-Elon Musk
5. Borrowing knowledge of reality from all sources, taking the best from every study, Science of Mind brings together the highest enlightenment of the ages.-Ernest Holmes
6. Enlightenment is always there. Small enlightenment will bring great enlightenment. If you breathe in and are aware that you are alive – that you can touch the miracle of being alive – then that is a kind of enlightenment.-Thich Nhat Hanh
7. Not creating delusions is enlightenment.-Bodhidharma
8. There are many paths to enlightenment. Be sure to take one with a heart.-Lao Tzu
9. Enlightenment means taking full responsibility for your life.-William Blake
10. Enlightenment is not about becoming divine. Instead it’s about becoming more fully human. . . . It is the end of ignorance.-Lama Surya Das
11. There is no enlightenment outside of daily life.-Thich Nhat Hanh
12. If I could define enlightenment briefly I would say it is “the quiet acceptance of what is.”-Wayne Dyer
13. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.-Carl Jung
14. Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment.-Dogen
15. Nirvana or lasting enlightenment or true spiritual growth can be achieved only through persistent exercise of real love.-M. Scott Peck
16. Just being the seeker, somebody whose open to spiritual enlightenment, is in itself the important thing and it’s the reward for being a seeker in this world.-Walter Isaacson
17. Enlightenment is like everyday consciousness but two inches above the ground.-D. T. Suzuki
18. The moment of enlightenment is when a person’s dreams of possibilities become images of probabilities.-Vic Braden
19. Only one person in a million becomes enlightened without a teacher’s help.-Bodhidharma
20. Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility.-George Orwell
21. He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.-Lao Tzu
22. Everybody wants to get enlightened but nobody wants to change.-Andrew Cohen
23. Enlightenment is the inner light of wisdom that is permanently free from all mistaken appearance, and whose function is to bestow mental peace upon each and every living being every day.-Kelsang Gyatso
24. Only a couple of times have I ever been to church and felt enlightened by it.-Lynn Johnston
25. 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.-Thich Nhat Hanh
26. Enlightenment is not something you achieve. It is the absence of something. All your life you have been going forward after something, pursuing some goal. Enlightenment is dropping all that.-Charlotte Joko Beck
27. Enlightenment means waking up to what you truly are and then being that.-Adyashanti
28. Spiritual realization is to see clearly that what I perceive, experience, think, or feel is ultimately not who I am, that I cannot find myself in all those things that continually pass away.-Eckhart Tolle
29. When you awaken, you realize that the separate person you took yourself to be is just a contract, a mental fabrication.-Stephan Bodian