“Consciousness, the great poem of matter, seems so unlikely, so impossible, and yet here we are with our loneliness and our giant dreams.”

—  Diane Ackerman , book A Natural History of the Senses

Source: A Natural History of the Senses (1990), Chapter 3 “Taste” (p. 130)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Consciousness, the great poem of matter, seems so unlikely, so impossible, and yet here we are with our loneliness and …" by Diane Ackerman?
Diane Ackerman photo
Diane Ackerman 30
Author, poet, naturalist 1948

Related quotes

Christopher Reeve photo

“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.”

Christopher Reeve (1952–2004) actor, director, producer, screenwriter

Speech at the Democratic National Convention (26 August 1996) http://www.chrisreevehomepage.com/sp-dnc1996.html

“At our age, loneliness can seem so permanent.”

Jonathan Tropper (1970) American writer

This is Where I Leave You

C.G. Jung photo

“We are so captivated by and entangled in our subjective consciousness that we have forgotten the age-old fact that God speaks chiefly through dreams and visions.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

The Symbolic Life (1953); also in Man and His Symbols (1964)

William Faulkner photo

“All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

On himself and his contemporaries.
Paris Review interview (1958)

Oprah Winfrey photo

“The great courageous act that we must all do, is to have the courage to step out of our history and past so that we can live our dreams.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist
Ai Weiwei photo

“I try to encourage people to look at our past in a critical way because as our education, we have a great, great history. But in reality we are poorest in ethics and philosophy, so I try to raise people’s consciousness on how we deal with our past.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, Ai Weiwei, interview by Christiane Amanpour, 2010

Emil M. Cioran photo

“We are so lonely in life that we must ask ourselves if the loneliness of dying is not a symbol of our human existence.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Source: On the Heights of Despair (1934)

Teresa of Ávila photo

“The devil frequently fills our thoughts with great schemes, so that instead of putting our hands to what work we can do to serve our Lord, we may rest satisfied with wishing to perform impossibilities.”

Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) Roman Catholic saint

Source: Interior Castle

“Childhood romances always seem so real, so enduring, when we are separated from the object of our affection. But usually, when we return, we find that our dreams and memories quiet surpassed reality.

-Lady Anne, Whitney's aunt”

Judith McNaught book Whitney, My Love

Source: Whitney, My Love

Alan Moore photo

“Because our entire universe is made up of consciousness, we never really experience the universe directly we just experience our consciousness of the universe, our perception of it, so right, our only universe is perception.”

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

The Believer interview (2013)
Context: Yeah, our view of reality, the one we conventionally take, is one among many. It’s pretty much a fact that our entire universe is a mental construct. We don’t actually deal with reality directly. We simply compose a picture of reality from what’s going on in our retinas, in the timpani of our ears, and in our nerve endings. We perceive our own perception, and that perception is to us the entirety of the universe. I believe magic is, on one level, the willful attempt to alter those perceptions. Using your metaphor of an aperture, you would be widening that window or changing the angle consciously, and seeing what new vistas it affords you.

Related topics