Quotes About Consciousness

It is indeed no small matter to know one's own guilt and one's own evil, and there is certainly nothing to be gained by losing sight of one's shadow. When we are conscious of our guilt we are in a more favourable position – we can at least hope to change and improve ourselves

through the miracle of consciousness, the human psyche provides the mirror in which Nature sees herself reflected.

But unlike many of his detractors, one suspects, Jung worked on his shadow: 'It is indeed no small matter to know one's own guilt and one's own evil, and there is certainly nothing to be gained by losing sight of one's shadow. When we are conscious of our guilt we are in a more favourable position – we can at least hope to change and improve ourselves' (CW X, para. 440).

Although we experience the ego as the continuing centre of our existence it is, in fact, merely the Self's executive. 'For indeed our consciousness does not create itself – it wells up from unknown depths. In childhood it awakens gradually, and all through life it wakes each morning out of the depths of sleep from an unconscious condition. It is like a child that is born daily out of the primordial womb of the unconscious

the ego begins to confront the Self and the Self the ego, and through the mediation of the transcendent function (which we will examine later) bring about the attainment of personality integration and higher consciousness.

Those who toe the party line do not choose their own way but submerge their potential for wholeness in a relatively unconscious existence of collective conformity.

Jung's gift for transcending the confines of his own consciousness began, as we have seen, in the fantasy games of his childhood.

By projecting his psyche into the stone he gave the stone life, identity, consciousness, doing what the alchemists did as they gazed into the prima materia in their retorts. He came to see the imagination as the psychic quicksilver out of which everything of value is created; for the material world of objects is devoid of all meaning save that which we grant it in the psyche.

Human consciousness created objective existence and meaning, and man found his indispensable place in the great process of being.

Wagner's music has the power to plumb new depths and uncover passions never before consciously experienced

Night, when words fade and things come alive.

I say 'told myself' because—and this became clearer to me later, I didn't know this back then, I wasn't wise to it—to put it bluntly, we never really know why we do what we do. The part of our brains tasked with generating reasons doesn't care about truth… only plausibility.

Life is a vexatious trap; when a thinking man reaches maturity and attains to full consciousness he cannot help feeling that he is in a trap from which there is no escape.

According to existential psychotherapist Irvin Yalom: 'Death … itches all the time; it is always with us, scratching at some inner door, whirring softly, barely audibly, just under the membrane of consciousness. Hidden and disguised, leaking out in a variety of symptoms, it is the wellspring of many of our worries, stresses, and conflicts'.

In this way we will be reminded of their true nature and come to a more 'objective' judgement. It is, Marcus says, like: 'seeing roasted meat and other dishes in front of you and suddenly realizing: This is a dead fish. A dead bird. A dead pig. Or that this noble vintage is grape juice, and the purple robes are sheep wool dyed with shellfish blood. Or making love – something rubbing against your penis, a brief seizure and a little cloudy liquid.

Marcus Aurelius writes: 'The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the colour of your thoughts.

You didn't see us," she said to Anna... "I was... lost in thought," Anna replied. "What were you thinking about?" "You," Anna said. "Isn't that strange? I was thinking of you two so hard that I didn't see you.

Había cerrado los ojos... era más fácil sentir con los ojos cerrados.

Where there is a stink of shit there is a smell of being.

We do not die because we have to die; we die because one day, and not so long ago, our consciousness was forced to deem it necessary.

I would like to write a Book which would drive men mad, which would be like an open door leading them where they would never have consented to go, in short, a door that opens onto reality.

How hard is it, when everything encourages us to sleep, though we may look about us with conscious, clinging eyes, to wake and yet look about us as in a dream, with eyes that no longer know their function and whose gaze is turned inward.

We used to believe that we were thinking beings who just happen to feel. We now know that we are feeling beings who think.