Quotes About Awareness

Some say that consciousness is an "illusion," but I have little idea what this could even mean. It seems to me that we are surer of the existence of conscious experience than we are of anything else in the world.

We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.

There comes a point in every man's life when he sees that the magician's hat is empty, that the government and the church are run by fools, and that virtue is far rarer than he'd been led to believe.

All we know of Russell's table is what we experience, and our experience differs from that of others and is dependent on where we are standing, what part we touch, how hard we touch it, and on and on. We are the blindfolded men around the elephant, each feeling but a small part of the whole. Some are arrogant enough to believe we can whip off the blindfold and see everything. But since the blindfold is the brain, it is not possible.

How much of our lives take place in the elusive spaces of this world—how much is conveyed, like the artistry of the master musician, in the silence between the notes?

We hear nothing so clearly as what comes out of silence.

Maybe our young people are not as vacuous as we would like to lead ourselves to believe - that all they're interested in is hairdos and looking at other beautiful people. Maybe they're interested in learning something.

Ex Scientia Lux Lucis (From Knowledge Comes Enlightenment)

It is both a blessing And a curse To feel everything So very deeply.

For they were unseasoned, nor inured, not knowing this to be much less than the beginning of sorrow.

If I am right in saying that thought is the ultimate origin or source, it follows that if we don't do anything about thought, we won't get anywhere. We may momentarily relieve the population problem, the ecological problem, and so on, but they will come back in another way.

Empathy's not standing over a hole looking down and saying you understand. Empathy is having been in that hole yourself.

If every American school taught the Bill of Rights in a clear and compelling way, if every child knew the fundamental rules that guide the relationships between the individual and the state, then every citizen would eventually feel the reflexive need to resist every violation. We had better begin now, for rights that are not invoked are eventually abandoned.

in learning how to imagine x, you gain abilities; later you have all the relevant imaginative abilities you had before, and more besides. and you notice, a priori, relationships of coherence or incoherence between attitudes that might figure in the realisation of x; later you are aware of all that you had noticed before, and more besides. and you think of new questions to explore in your imagining...and later you have in mind all the questions you had thought of before, and more besides.

Education is important, but we're to the point where almost everyone knows they shouldn't drink and drive. The people who are still doing it are choosing to do it. The most effective way to deal with them is to arrest them.

We see trees - they see only posts and beams.

You're going to want to, but you just can't blame the accident on the Bartles & Jaymes. That wouldn't be fair. Yes, Mooney's blood alcohol was flirting with .15 and his reaction time was down, but 250 pounds of aggressively stupid animal that springs out of nowhere and stands frozen on the center stripe of a dark highway, right in the middle of an unlit curve, I mean, that asshole has to be factored into the equation too.

A driver who has no interest in motorcycles, and isn't expecting to see one, may not comprehend a motorcycle regardless of how conspicuous it is.

less experienced riders look closer to the bike with a more fixed gaze, while skillful riders look farther ahead and frequently change their focus.

12 seconds represents about as far ahead as you can see details. If you're not in the habit of looking that far ahead, then you should be working on that important technique.

point your nose—rather than just swivel your eyes—in the direction that you want to go. For whatever physical or psychological reasons, the act of turning your head helps aim the motorcycle in that direction.

1. Anticipate what's going to happen.

Two ways to increase your anticipation time are looking farther ahead and reducing speed in busy situations.

Contrary to those pseudo-serious Loud Pipes Save Lives stickers, noise basically annoys people and demonstrates that you are impolite and self-centered.