Quotes About Consciousness

The reality of the building does not consist in the roof and walls, but in the space within to be lived in.

Man is the only animal that can be bored.

We can say "Peace on Earth." We can sing about it, preach about it or pray about it, but if we have not internalized the mythology to make it happen inside us, then it will not be.

Man would be "otherwise." That's the essence of the specifically human.

Choice of attention, to pay attention to this and ignore that, is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer.

Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around us in awareness.

The study of crime begins with the knowledge of oneself.

Speaking generally, punishment hardens and numbs, it produces concentration, it sharpens the consciousness of alienation, it strengthens the power of resistance.

Continually one faces the horrible matter of making decisions. The solution ... is, as far as possible, to avoid conscious rational decisions and choices; simply to do what you find yourself doing; to float in the great current of life with as little friction as possible; to allow things to settle themselves, as indeed they do with the most infallible certainty.

I couldn't claim that I have never felt the urge to explore evil, but when you descend into hell you have to be very careful.

To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune; Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?

You are not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.

Nothing is more to me than myself.

One matter Englishmen don't think in the least funny is their happy consciousness of possessing a deep sense of humour.

A believer, a mind whose faith is consciousness, is never disturbed because other persons do not yet see the fact which he sees.

The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.

And when he is out of sight, quickly also he is out of mind.

I observed once to Goethe ... that when a friend is with us we do not think the same of him as when he is away. He replied, "Yes! because the absent friend is yourself, and he exists only in your head; whereas the friend who is present has an individuality of his own, and moves according to laws of his own, which cannot always be in accordance with those which you form for yourself."

To think is easy. To act is difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult of all.

What you theoretically know, vividly realize.

We don't have enough time to premeditate all our actions.

It is in your act that you exist, not in your body. Your act is yourself, and there is no other you.

To think you are separate from God is to remain separate from your own being.

Habit is the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding, or regretting, of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all.