Gnosticism Quotes

• In Gnosticism, the physical world did not ultimately matter - which meant physical suffering did not matter either. Seeking 'enlightenment' meant cultivating an attitude of detachment, even indifference.

  Nancy Pearcey

  Attitude, Suffering, Enlightenment

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• Mysticism has often been misunderstood as the attempt to escape this simple, phenomenal world to a more pure existence in heaven beyond. This is not mysticism, but Gnosticism. Biblical mysticism is the attempt to exit 'this world' to an alternative reality that pervades the old order. Its goal is to jettison the mind-set that says 'greed is good,' selfishness is normal,' and 'killing is necessary.' Mysticism in biblical terms is not escapism, as so many have caricatured it, but a fight for ethics and social change.

  Walter Wink

  Biblical, Fighting, Simple

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• The Kingdom of God is Within You.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Jesus, Christ Consciousness, Gnosis

  Leo Tolstoy (2013). “The Non-Fiction of Leo Tolstoy: (Includes A Confession, The Kingdom of God is Within You, A Letter to a Hindu, Youth, Tolstoy on Shakespeare, What to Do)”, p.138, Golgotha Press

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• Gnosticism was stamped out completely and its remnants are so badly mangled that special study is needed to get any insight at all into its inner meaning.

  Carl Jung

  Special, Study, Remnants

  Carl Gustav Jung (1989). “The Collected Works of C. G. Jung: Psychology and religion”

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• The perpetual enemy of faith in the true God is not atheism (the claim that there is no God), but rather Gnosticism (the claim that God is known).

  Martin Buber

  Enemy, Atheism, Claims

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• Bog-lights, vapors of mysticism, psychic overtones, soul orgies, wailings among the shadows, weird gnosticisms, veils and tissues of words, gibbering subjectivisms, gropings and maunderings, ontological fantasies ... this is the stuff, the phantasms of hope, that fills your book shelves. Look at them, all the sad wraiths of sad mad men and passionate rebels — your Schopenhauers, your Strindbergs, your Tolstois and Nietzsches. Come. Your glass is empty. Fill and forget.

  Jack London

  Book, Glasses, Light

  "Novels and Social Writings".

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