U. G. Krishnamurti quotes

Nature is interested in only two things - to survive and to reproduce one like itself. Anything you superimpose on that, all the cultural input, is responsible for the boredom of man. (U. G. Krishnamurti)
To be yourself requires extraordinary intelligence. You are blessed with that intelligence; nobody need give it to you; nobody can take it away from you. He who lets that express itself in its own way is a "Natural Man." View quote
U. G. Krishnamurti
There is no such thing as truth. The only thing that is actually there is your "logically" ascertained premise, which you call "truth." View quote
U. G. Krishnamurti
I am not anti-rational, just unrational. You may infer a rational meaning in what I say or do, but it is your doing, not mine. View quote
U. G. Krishnamurti
You think when you don't want to do anything. Thinking is a poor alternative to acting. Your thinking is consuming all your energy. Act, don't think! View quote
U. G. Krishnamurti
Food, clothing and shelter - these are the basic needs. Beyond that, if you want anything, it is the beginning of self-deception. View quote
U. G. Krishnamurti
My teaching, if that is the word you want to use, has no copyright. You are free to reproduce, distribute, interpret, misinterpret, distort, garble, do what you like, even claim authorship, without my consent or the permission of anybody. View quote
U. G. Krishnamurti
If you have the courage to touch life for the first time, you will never know what hit you. Everything man has thought, felt and experienced is gone, and nothing is put in its place. View quote
U. G. Krishnamurti
I am simply pointing out that at the rate at which we are going the whole genetic engineering technology will end up in the hands of the political system to be used for the complete control and subjugation of man. View quote
U. G. Krishnamurti
Society or culture or whatever you might want to call it, has created us all solely and wholly for the purpose of maintaining its continuity and status quo. View quote
U. G. Krishnamurti
We are not created for any grander purpose than the ants that are there or the flies that are hovering around us or the mosquitoes that are sucking our blood. (U. G. Krishnamurti)
The plain fact is that if you don't have a problem, you create one. If you don't have a problem you don't feel that you are living. View quote
U. G. Krishnamurti
You can have the courage to climb the mountain, swim the lakes, go on a raft to the other side of the Atlantic or Pacific. That any fool can do, but the courage to be on your own, to stand on your two solid feet, is something which cannot be given by somebody. View quote
U. G. Krishnamurti
*Only if you reject all the other paths can you discover your own path. View quote
U. G. Krishnamurti
The fact is that we don't want to be free. What is responsible for our problems is the fear of losing what we have and what we know. View quote
U. G. Krishnamurti
We think that thoughts are there inside of us. We think that they are self-generated and spontaneous. What is actually there is what I call a thought-sphere. The thought-sphere is the totality of man's experiences, thoughts, and feelings passed on to us from generation to generation. View quote
U. G. Krishnamurti
It is the body that is immortal. It is living from moment to moment. As a human body it is an extraordinary piece of creation. But as a human being he is rotten because of the culture. View quote
U. G. Krishnamurti
Political institutions and ideologies are the warty outgrowth of the religious thinking of the man; in a way responsible for the tragedy of mankind. We are slaves to our ideas and beliefs, and we torture ourselves in the hope of achieving something. All our experience, spiritual or otherwise, is the basic cause of our suffering... The body is not interested in anything "you" are interested in; that is the battle that is going on all the time. View quote
U. G. Krishnamurti
Nature is busy creating absolutely unique individuals, whereas culture has invented a single mold to which all must conform. It is grotesque. View quote
U. G. Krishnamurti
A guru is one who tells you to throw away all the crutches that we have been made to believe are essential for our survival. He would ask you to walk, and he would say that if you fall, you will arise and walk. View quote
U. G. Krishnamurti
It [thought] is a mechanical thing and can solve only mechanical problems. But you want to use it to understand something living; that is the problem. It is not intended for that. Human problems are something living. You cannot use thinking to solve those problems. (U. G. Krishnamurti)
It is the ones who believe in God, who preach peace and talk of love, who have created the human jungle. Compared to man's jungle, nature's jungle is simple and sensible! In nature animals don't kill their own kind. That is part of the beauty of nature. In this regard man is worse than the other animals. The so-called "civilized" man kills for ideals and beliefs, while the animals kill only for survival. View quote
U. G. Krishnamurti
To be an individual and to be yourself you don't have to do a thing. Culture demands that you should be something other than what you are. What a tremendous amount of energy - the will, the effort - we waste trying to become that! If that energy is released, what is it that we can't do? How simple it would be for every one of us to live in this world! View quote
U. G. Krishnamurti
You know the story of 'Alice in Wonderland'. The red queen has to run faster and faster to keep still where she is. That is exactly what you are all doing. running faster and faster. But you are not moving anywhere. View quote
U. G. Krishnamurti
No talent is required to reproduce. Nature has done a tremendous job in creating this extraordinary piece - the body. The body does not want to learn anything from culture. It doesn't want to know anything from us. We are always interested in telling this body how to function. All our experiences, spiritual or otherwise, are the basic cause of our suffering. The body is not interested in your bliss or your ecstasies. It is not interested in your pleasure. It is not in interested in anything that you are interested in. And that is the battle that is going on all the time. But there seems to be no way out. View quote
U. G. Krishnamurti