Gnostic Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old gnostic quotes, gnostic sayings, and gnostic proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

This is the basic insight of the Gnostics, the one known to the great mystical thinkers of all traditions: the divine spark is within each human being. Lesley Hazleton
This system of chain wars can end only in two ways: either it will result in horrible physical destructions and concomitant revolutionary changes of social order beyond reasonable guesses; or, with the natural change of generations, it will lead to the abandoning of Gnostic dreaming before the worst has happened. Eric Voegelin
The Gnostic's passionate adoration of Sophia was known as philosophia – the love of Sophia – a mystical communication with divine feminine wisdom, having little to do with the strictly intellectual, most often masculine, pursuit currently labeled “philosophy. Zeena Schreck
Scientism is gnosticism wrapped in a post-modern package. R. Alan Woods
The emanistic theories which played so great a part in Neoplatonic philosophy and Gnostic theology are forms of evolution. Thomas Henry Huxley
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
Gnostics, in general, are not trying to delineate a set of beliefs. The intent is to inspire the sacred quest for true gnosis and to provide keys through which true gnosis might be acquired. Tau Malachi
The timidity of the child or the savage is entirely reasonable; they are alarmed at this world, because this world is a very alarming place. They dislike being alone because it is verily and indeed an awful idea to be alone. Barbarians fear the unknown for the same reason that Agnostics worship it --because it is a fact. G. K. Chesterton
When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others. Bertrand Russell
There are some kinds of Christianity that insist you have to believe literally in doctrine. The Gnostic gospels open out the complexity and multiplicity of approaches to this. If you think the story of the virgin birth is mistranslated, for instance, it doesn't mean you have to throw out the whole thing. Elaine Pagels
Grounded in the natural philosophy of the Middle Ages, alchemy formed a bridge: on the one hand into the past, to Gnosticism, and on the other into the future, to the modern psychology of the unconscious. Carl Jung
Gnosticism is an outsider proposition, an introvert's game Christopher Knowles
The Gnostics believed that exile was the essential condition of man. Do you agree? I do. The artist and the addict both wrestle with this experience of exile. They share an acute, even excruciating sensitivity to the state of separation and isolation, and both actively seek a way to overcome it, to transcend it, or at least to make the pain go away. What is the pain of being human? It's the condition of being suspended between two worlds and being unable to fully enter into either. Steven Pressfield
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
Patience is the Gnostic's scale and the humble the garden's door. Samael Aun Weor
The idea that we are to be absorbed into the Deity is Gnostic in its origins and is quite antithetical to Christianity. R. Alan Woods
The true Gnostic understands that there is a difference between religious activity and spiritual truth. David Tresemer
GNOSTICS, n. A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a fusion between the early Christians and the Platonists. The former would not go into the caucus and the combination failed, greatly to the chagrin of the fusion managers. Ambrose Bierce
As a corpus, the (Gnostic) scriptures are nearly incoherent, like a crowd of sages, mystics and madmen all speaking at once. But always they call upon us to know ourselves. William T. Vollmann
Sacraments, like the Incarnation itself, constitute physical points at which the eternal touches time, or the unseen touches the seen, or grace touches nature. It is the Gnostics and Manicheans who want a purely disembodied religion. Thomas Howard
Gnosticism has always been difficult to define, largely because it is a system of thought based upon and frequently amended by experiences of nonordinary states of consciousness, and thus it is resistant to theological rigidity. Stephan Hoeller
Gnostic teachings speak of the reality and power of evil and its fundamental presence throughout manifest existence. They declare that while we may not be able to rid the world or ourselves of evil, we may, and indeed will, rise above it through gnosis. Stephan Hoeller
In the Gnostic formula it is understood that, though thrown into temporality, we had an origin in eternity, and so also we have an aim in eternity. Hans Jonas
Gnostic politics is self-defeating in so far as its disregard for the structure of reality leads to continuous warfare. Eric Voegelin
Gnostic tales tell of the homesickness of the soul, its yearning for its own milieu… Thomas Moore
Authentic atheism is a blank page; Gnostic atheism hides a text written in invisible ink. The Ãœbermensch is the recourse of a nonconformist atheism. Nietzsche invents a human consolation for the death of God; Gnostic atheism, on the other hand, proclaims the divinity of man. Nicolás Gómez Dávila
The Gnostic needs a lot of patience because any act of impatience leads him to failure. Samael Aun Weor
Philosophy springs from the love of being; it is man's loving endeavor to perceive the order of being and attune himself to it. Gnosis desires dominion over being; in order to seize control of being the Gnostic constructs his system. The building of systems is a gnostic form of reasoning, not a philosophical one. Eric Voegelin
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
The Gnostic only can wake up to the true state of Illumination by understanding and disintegrating dreams. Samael Aun Weor