Quotes About Consciousness

De manera que, poniéndome en el lugar del oráculo y preguntándome qué es lo que preferiría ser, lo que soy yo o lo que son ellos, saber lo que ellos han aprendido o saber que no sé nada, me he respondido a mí mismo y al Dios: Quiero seguir siendo lo que soy.

To exist is to feel; our feeling is undoubtedly earlier than our intelligence, and we had feelings before we had ideas.

He is no longer himself, but has become an automaton who has ceased to be guided by his will.

The sentiments and ideas of all the persons in the gathering take one and the same direction, and their conscious personality vanishes. A collective mind is formed, doubtless transitory, but presenting very clearly defined characteristics.

I am. I am, I exist, I think, therefore I am; I am because I think, why do I think? I don't want to think any more, I am because I think that I don't want to be, I think that I . . . because . . . ugh!

I exist, that is all, and I find it nauseating.

I exist. It is soft, so soft, so slow. And light: it seems as though it suspends in the air. It moves.

Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is.

I am myself and I am here.

Nothingness haunts Being.

A pale reflection of myself wavers in my consciousness...and suddenly the "I" pales, pales, and fades out.

The consciousness that says 'I am' is not the consciousness that thinks.

The Nausea has not left me and I don't believe it will leave me so soon; but I no longer have to bear it, it is no longer an illness or a passing fit: it is I.

He walked on in silence, the solitary sound of his footsteps echoing in his head, as in a deserted street, at dawn. His solitude was so complete, beneath a lovely sky as mellow and serene as a good conscience, amid that busy throng, that he was amazed at his own existence; he must be somebody else's nightmare, and whoever it was would certainly awaken soon.

You're lucky. I'm always conscious of myself —in my mind. Painfully conscious.

I am not asking for sensational revelations, but I would like to sense the meaning of that minute, to feel it's urgency...

The Nausea is not inside me: I feel it out there in the wall, in the suspenders, everywhere around me. It makes itself one with the café, I am the one who is within it.

I exist. It's sweet, so sweet, so slow. And light: you'd think it floated all by itself. It stirs. It brushes by me, melts and vanishes. Gently, gently. There is bubbling water in my throat, it caresses me- and now it comes up again into my mouth. For ever I shall have a little pool of whitish water in my mouth - lying low - grazing my tongue. And this pool is still me. And the tongue. And the throat is me.

Consciousness is a being the nature of which is to be conscious of the nothingness of its being.

J'existe, c'est tout.

Your scare me rather. My reflection in the glass never did that; of course, I knew it so well. Like something I had tamed...I'm going to smile, and my smile will sink down into your pupils, and heaven knows what it will become.

One can ask why the I has to appear in the cogito {Descartes' argument "I think therefore I am.}, since the cogito, if used rightly, is the awareness of pure consciousness, not directed at any fact or action. In fact the I is not necessary here, since it is never united directly to consciousness. One can even imagine a pure and self-aware consciousness which thinks of itself as impersonal spontaneity.

The appearance of the other in the world corresponds therefore to a congealed sliding of the whole universe.

It is certain that we cannot escape anguish, for we are anguish.