To see him every night is a miracle. During the reading he said, "Ah, human nature. You give something to someone. First time he prostrates himself, second time he kisses your hand, third time he gets familiar, fourth time he merely nods at you, the fifth time he insults you because not enough what you give, and in the end he sues you."

~ "Gurdjieff and the Women of the Rope"

...

IT IS PRECISELY ON THIS THAT THE POSSIBILITY OF EVOLUTION IS BASED

When we talked before about the octaves of food in the three-story factory we saw that all the finer 'hydrogens' needed for the working, the growth, and the evolution of the organism were prepared from three kinds of food, that is, from food in the strict meaning of the word— eatables and drink, from air which we breathe, and from impressions. Now let us suppose that we could improve the quality of food and air, feed, let us say, on 'hydrogen' 384 instead of 768 and breathe 'hydrogen' 96 instead of 192. How much simpler and easier the preparation of fine matters in the organism would be then. But the whole point is that this is impossible. The organism is adapted to transform precisely these coarse matters into fine matters, and if you give it fine matters instead of coarse matters it will not be in a position to transform them and it will very soon die. Neither air nor food can be changed. But impressions, that is, the quality of the impressions possible to man, are not subject to any cosmic law. Man cannot improve his food, he cannot improve the air. Improvement in this case would be actually making things worse. For instance 'hydrogen' 96 instead of 192 would be either very rarefied air or very hot incandescent gases which man cannot possibly breathe; fire is 'hydrogen' 96. It is exactly the same with food. 'Hydrogen' 384 is water. If man could improve his food, that is, make it finer, he would have to feed on water and breathe fire. It is clear that this is impossible. But while it is not possible for him to improve his food and air he can improve his impressions to a very high degree and in this way introduce fine 'hydrogens' into the organism. It is precisely on this that the possibility of evolution is based. A man is not at all obliged to feed on the dull impressions of H48, he can have both H24, H12, and H6, and even H3. This changes the whole picture and a man who makes higher 'hydrogens' the food for the upper story of his machine will certainly differ from one who feeds on the lower 'hydrogens.'"

~ George Gurdjieff as quoted by PD Ouspensky in “In Search of the Miraculous”