The End of Self-Importance

You must come to the realization that you are nothing. We look vaguely at the diagrams or write down notes. Or we say: "Oh, yes, I have heard that before," and go on thinking just as we always do, often thinking we are sure of our own worth and sure that we really know what is right or wrong.

But this sleep, this deep infatuation with ourselves, this self-conceit, must later on cease. You must begin to feel that there is nothing else for you but the Work, and that you must for yourself think out and see the meaning of everything you hear day after day taught you in the Work. Then you begin, at last, to awaken.

Maurice Nicoll, “Thinking from Life and Thinking from the Work" in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 1, p. 238)