“Irony is the first hint that consciousness became conscious.”

— Fernando Pessoa, book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 151
The Book of Disquiet
Original: A ironia é o primeiro indício de que a consciência se tornou consciente.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 1, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Irony is the first hint that consciousness became conscious." by Fernando Pessoa?

Fernando Pessoa photo

Fernando Pessoa288

Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publi… 1888–1935

Related quotes

“Language comes first. It's not that language grows out of consciousness, if you haven't got language, you can't be conscious.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

“Bennett seems to be showing alarming signs of irony. I have always found that irony among the lower orders is the first sign of an awakening social consciousness. It remains to be seen whether it will grow into an armed seizure of the means of production, distribution and exchange, or spend itself in liberal journalism.”

Tom Stoppard Travesties

Carr, Act I
Travesties (1974)

“It's a fitting irony that under Richard Nixon "launder" became a dirty word.”

William Zinsser (1922–2015) writer, editor, journalist, literary critic, professor

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 7, Usage, p. 47.

“(…) In reality there is only consciousness. All life is conscious, all consciousness alive.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Awareness and consciousness
Source: "I am That." P.47.

“Consciousness is a much smaller part of our mental life than we are conscious of, because we cannot be conscious of what we are not conscious of.”

Julian Jaynes book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

Book I, Chapter 1, p. 23
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1976)

“Conscious mind is a spatial analog of the world and mental acts are analogs of bodily acts. Consciousness operates only on objectively observable things. Or, to say it another way with echoes of John Locke, there is nothing in consciousness that is not an analog of something that was in behavior first.”

Julian Jaynes book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

Book I, Chapter 2, p. 66
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1976)

“The greatest barrier to consciousness is the belief that one is already conscious.”

P. D. Ouspensky (1878–1947) Russian esotericist

The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution (1950)

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

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

“To be conscious is to be consciousness: Consciousness, the knower in you, cannot be known, although it can be experienced. You can experience consciousness now by experiencing the fact that you exist.”

Barry Long (1926–2003) Australian spiritual teacher and writer

Knowing Yourself: The True in the False (1996)

“The fact is, that what de Sade was trying to bring to the surface of the conscious mind was precisely the thing that revolted that mind… From the very first he set before the consciousness things which it could not tolerate.”

Georges Bataille (1897–1962) French intellectual and literary figure

Related topics