Quotes about awareness
page 4

“It is clear that the world is purely parodic, in other words, that each thing seen is the parody of another, or is the same thing in a deceptive form.
Ever since sentences started to circulate in brains devoted to reflection, an effort at total identification has been made, because with the aid of a copula each sentence ties one thing to another; all things would be visibly connected if one could discover at a single glance and in its totality the tracings of Ariadne’s thread leading thought into its own labyrinth.
But the copula of terms is no less irritating than the copulation of bodies. And when I scream I AM THE SUN an integral erection results, because the verb to be is the vehicle of amorous frenzy.
Everyone is aware that life is parodic and that it lacks an interpretation. Thus lead is the parody of gold. Air is the parody of water. The brain is the parody of the equator. Coitus is the parody of crime.”

Georges Bataille book The Solar Anus

The Solar Anus (1927)

Life, World, Effort, Water

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

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright

Fear, Anger

“Every new medium transforms the nature of human thought. In the long run, history is the story of information becoming aware of itself.”

James Gleick book The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

Source: The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

History, Nature

“It is a remarkable question- Do all the wonderful things happen when we are not aware of them?”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Question

“Nice creepy reptile,” Frank said, very aware of the driftwood in his coat pocket. “Nice poisonous, fire-breathing reptile.”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

“I am like a person whose hands were kept numb, without sensation from the first moment of awareness - until one day the ability to feel is forced into them. And I say "Look! I have no hands!" But the people all around me say: "What are hands?”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

People, Feeling, Personality

“Like all those possessing a library, Aurelian was aware that he was guilty of not knowing his in its entirety.”

Jorge Luis Borges book The Theologians

The Theologians, translated by James E. Irby (1964)

“All the emotions have something in common. People are quite aware of the sorrow there always is in lust, but they are not so aware of the lust there is in sorrow.”

Graham Greene The Tenth Man

Source: The Tenth Man

People

“I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware, and by the far the largest to me, and that is myself.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

World

“Nonviolent action, born of the awareness of suffering and nurtured by love, is the most effective way to confront adversity.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Love in Action: Writings on Nonviolent Social Change

Love, Way, Suffering

“The most hopelessly stupid man is he who is not aware that he is wise.”

Isaac Asimov book Second Foundation

Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Second Foundation (1953), Chapter 8 “Seldon’s Plan”

Stupidity

“And she was terribly aware that she was alive. Not just living and breathing, but… alive.”

Mary Balogh (1944) Welsh-Canadian novelist

Source: Simply Love

“As a child, I was aware that, at night, infrared vision would reveal monsters hiding in the bedroom closet only if they were warm-blooded. But everybody knows that your average bedroom monster is reptilian and cold-blooded.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson book Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries

Source: Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries

Night

“We are all born with extraordinary powers of imagination, intelligence, feeling, intuition, spirituality, and of physical and sensory awareness. (p.9)”

Ken Robinson (1950) UK writer

Source: The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

Feeling, Imagination, Intelligence

“We sit and talk,
quietly, with long lapses of silence
and I am aware of the stream
that has no language, coursing
beneath the quiet heaven of
your eyes
which has no speech”

William Carlos Williams book Paterson

Source: Paterson

Silence

“Forget the self and you will fear nothing, in whatever level or awareness you find yourself to be.”

Carlos Castaneda (1925–1998) Peruvian-American author

Source: The Active Side of Infinity

Fear, Forgetting

“All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Peace, Justice

“Freedom is not given to us by anyone; we have to cultivate it ourselves. It is a daily practice… No one can prevent you from being aware of each step you take or each breath in and breath out.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

Freedom

“Bread, soup - these were my whole life. I was a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Source: Night

Life, Time

“Through travel I first became aware of the outside world; it was through travel that I found my own introspective way into becoming a part of it.”

Eudora Welty book One Writer's Beginnings

Source: One Writer's Beginnings

World, Way, Travel, Parting

“There is a certain part of all of us that lives outside of time. Perhaps we become aware of our age only at exceptional moments and most of the time we are ageless.”

Milan Kundera (1929–2023) Czech author of Czech and French literature

Age, Time, Parting

“All right," he said. "Since you ask so nicely."
"I wasn't asking."
"I'm aware of that. The sharp point in my back did make it clear.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Bite Club

“Intelligence is a measure of how well you function within your level of awareness.”

Scott Adams (1957) cartoonist, writer

Source: God's Debris: A Thought Experiment

Intelligence

“Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.”

Emily Post (1872–1960) American etiquette expert

Feeling

“You don't have to be a person of influence to be influential. In fact, the most influential people in my life are probably not even aware of the things they've taught me.”

Scott Adams (1957) cartoonist, writer

Life, People, Personality

“I had made a decision, although I hardly knew it yet. It's often that way with decisions, they're made in some hidden part of us and the awareness secretes itself slowly into that conscious part of us that imagines it decides.”

Neil Jordan Mistaken

Source: Mistaken

Secret, Way, Imagination, Decision

“As we live our precarious lives on the brink of the void, constantly coming closer to a state of nonbeing, we are all too often aware of our fragitlity.”

Iris Murdoch book Nuns and Soldiers

Source: Nuns and Soldiers

“I was aware too how strange adults were, how theirs lives were vaster than they wanted anyone to realize, that they actually stretched on and on like deserts, dry and desolate, with an unpredictable, shifting sea of dunes.”

Marisha Pessl Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Source: Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Sea

“I do regard her as one who is too modest for the world in general to be aware of half her accomplishments, and too highly accomplished for modesty to be natural of any other woman.”

Jane Austen book Persuasion

Source: Persuasion

World, Nature

“Usually the threat of death makes people a lot more aware of their lives.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Death, People

“If you touch one thing with deep awareness, you touch everything.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

“Those at too great a distance may, I am well aware, mistake ignorance for perspective.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Introduction (p. 7)
The Dragons of Eden (1977)
Source: Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

“Whenever the intensity of looking reaches a certain degree, one becomes aware of an equally intense energy coming towards one through the appearance of whatever it is one is scrutinizing.”

John Berger (1926–2017) British painter, writer and art critic

Appearance

“Within that moment was trust, compassion, and our mutual sense of irony. He was carrying death within him and I was carrying life. We were both aware of that, I know.”

Patti Smith Just Kids

Source: Just Kids

Life, Death, Sense

“There's nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book.”

Carson McCullers (1917–1967) American writer

Books

“You can be Eastern or Burmese or what have you, but the function of the body and the awareness of the body results in dance and you become a dancer, not just a human being.”

Martha Graham (1894–1991) American dancer and choreographer

Source: Blood Memory

Dance

“I mean, say that you figure that everything is senseless, then it can't be quite senseless because you are aware that it's senseless and your awareness of senselessness almost gives it sense. You
know what I mean?”

Charles Bukowski book Pulp

Source: Pulp

Sense

“Everyone lives bound by their own knowledge and awareness. They define that as reality; but knowledge and awareness are vage, and perhaps better called illusions.”

Masashi Kishimoto (1974) Japanese manga artist

Knowledge, Reality

“When you are able to shift your inner awareness to how you can serve others, and when you make this the central focus of your life, you will then be in a position to know true miracles in your progress toward prosperity.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

Life

“Each of us is an artist of our days; the greater our integrity and awareness, the more original and creative our time will become.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

Time

“An awareness of death encourages us to live more intensely.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Death

“Have you ever felt that there was something going on in life that not everyone was aware of?”

Regina Doman (1970) American writer

Source: The Shadow of the Bear

Life

“Awareness requires living in the here and now, and not in the elsewhere, the past or the future.”

Eric Berne book Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships

Source: Games People Play

Past, Future

“More is happening out there than we are aware of.
It is possibly due to some unknown direful circumstance.”

Edward Gorey (1925–2000) American writer, artist, and illustrator

“[T]he Christian is unable to sin and not care… They may sin, but they cannot do so comfortably and continually. They are very much aware of their wrong actions, and they are very miserable.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Source: Living Beyond Your Feelings: Controlling Emotions So They Don't Control You

“I have always been aware of how I break.
I know what kind of situations will break me.
I know what kind of people will do it.
I know how much it will hurt.”

David Levithan book Every You, Every Me

Source: Every You, Every Me

People, Hurt

“Sometimes you are aware when your great moments are happening, and sometimes they rise from the past. Perhaps it's the same with people.”

James Salter (1925–2015) American novelist and short-story writer

Source: Burning the Days: Recollection

People, Past

“One cannot be humble and aware of oneself at the same time.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: A Circle of Quiet

Time

“Awareness of insanity does not make one any less insane. Awareness of drowning does not make one any less of a drowning person--it only adds the burden of panic”

Guillermo del Toro book The Night Eternal

Source: The Night Eternal

Personality

“The self is coming from a state of pure awareness from the state of being. All the rest that comes about in a outward manifesation of the physical world, including fluctuations which end up as thoughts and actions”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

Source: The Doors of Perception & Heaven and Hell

World

“And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes
Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Love, Heart

“Awareness is like the sun. When it shines on things, they are transformed.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Sun

“When someone dies, you don't get over it by forgetting; you get over it by remembering, and you are aware that no person is ever truly lost or gone once they have been in our life and loved us, as we have loved them.”

Leslie Marmon Silko (1948) American writer

Love, Life, Personality, Forgetting

“Anger is better. There is a sense of being in anger. A reality and presence. An awareness of worth. It is a lovely surging.”

Toni Morrison book The Bluest Eye

Source: The Bluest Eye

Love, Reality, Sense, Anger

“I had become, with the approach of night, once more aware of loneliness and time - those two companions without whom no journey can yield us anything.”

Lawrence Durrell (1912–1990) British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer

Source: Bitter Lemons of Cyprus

Time, Loneliness, Night

“Love of life is born of the awareness of death, of the dread of it.”

Ian Fleming book The Spy Who Loved Me

Source: The Spy Who Loved Me

Love, Life, Death

“Fear is self-awareness raised to a higher level.”

Don DeLillo book White Noise

Source: White Noise

Fear

“If you focus your awareness only upon your own rightness, then you invite the forces of opposition to overwhelm you.”

Frank Herbert book Children of Dune

Source: Children of Dune

“He blinked, and his eyes moved at last from her face, slowly taking in her appearance, and- with what seemed to her a new and horrified awareness- her height.

"My God," he croaked. "”

Diana Gabaldon book Drums of Autumn

Source: Drums of Autumn

God, Appearance

“Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is."
(Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Sex, Guy

“It's all real and it's all illusory:
that's Awareness!”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now

“Only those who are truly aware of their sin can truly cherish grace.”

C.J. Mahaney (1953) American clergyman

Source: The Cross Centered Life: Keeping the Gospel The Main Thing

“Sometimes it is better not to talk about art by using the word "art". If we just act with awareness and integrity, our art will flower, and we don't have to talk about it at all.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

Art, Flowers

“All we have to do is understand that we're all here for a reason and to commit ourselves to that. Then we can laugh at our sufferings, large and small and walk fearlessly, aware that each step has meaning”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Witch Of Portobello

Understanding, Suffering

“The rock, for its part, is not even aware of our existence because we are alive for only a brief instant of its lifespan. To it, we are like flashes in the dark.”

Michael Crichton book The Andromeda Strain

Source: The Andromeda Strain

Parting

“If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat. It is an unnecessary insult.”

Maya Angelou book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Source: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Pain, Girl

“Perhaps we become aware of our age only at exceptional moments and most of the time we are ageless.”

Milan Kundera book Immortality

Source: Immortality

Age, Time

“It may be that we are puppets — puppets controlled by the strings of society. But at least we are puppets with perception, with awareness. And perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation.”

Stanley Milgram (1933–1984) Social psychologist

As quoted in The Social Dimensions Of Law And Justice In Contemporary India (1979) by V. R. Krishna Iyer
Context: It may be that we are puppets — puppets controlled by the strings of society. But at least we are puppets with perception, with awareness. And perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation. The fact that obedience is often a necessity in human society does not diminish our responsibility as citizens. Rather, it confers on us a special obligation to place in positions of authority those most likely to use it humanely. And people are inventive. The variety of political forms we have seen in history are only several of many possible political arrangements. Perhaps the next step is to invent and to explore political forms that will give conscience a better chance to resist errant authority.

“Awareness
There is a dark place.
A place where I have no eyes, no mouth. No words.
I can't cry out because I have no breath. The silence is so deep I want to die.
But I can't.
The darkness and silence go on forever.
It is not a dream.
I don't dream.”

Mary E. Pearson book The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Source: The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Dreams, Silence, Cry

“We were all keen since the beginning, starting with the directives of His Majesty King Abdullah II, who was aware of the importance of this work for decision makers, to ensure that the census would proceed according to its plan”

Abdullah Ensour (1939) prime minister of Jordan

Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour on Monday attended a conference to launch the official results of the 2015 national population and housing census, quoted on Petra.gov, "PM attends conference to launch official results of national census" http://www.petra.gov.jo/Public_News/Nws_NewsDetails.aspx?lang=2&site_id=1&NewsID=239314&CatID=13, February 22, 2016.

Decision

“This situation [alienation] can therefore [according to Durkheim] be remedied by providing the individual with a moral awareness of the social importance of his particular role in the division of labour. He is then no longer an alienated automaton. but is a useful part of an organic whole: ‘from that time, as special and uniform as his activity may be, it is that of an intelligent being, for it has direction, and he is aware of it.’ This is entirely consistent with Durkheim’s general account of the growth of the division of labour, and its relationship to human freedom. It is only through moral acceptance in his particular role in the division of labour that the individual is able to achieve a high degree of autonomy as a self-conscious being, and can escape both the tyranny of rigid moral conformity demanded in undifferentiated societies on the one hand and the tyranny of unrealisable desires on the other.
Not the moral integration of the individual within a differentiated division of labour but the effective dissolution of the division of labour as an organising principle of human social intercourse, is the premise of Marx’s conception. Marx nowhere specifies in detail how this future society would be organised socially, but, at any rate,. this perspective differs decisively from that of Durkheim. The vision of a highly differentiated division of labour integrated upon the basis of moral norms of individual obligation and corporate solidarity. is quite at variance with Marx’s anticipation of the future form of society.
According to Durkheim’s standpoint. the criteria underlying Marx’s hopes for the elimination of technological alienation represent a reversion to moral principles which are no longer appropriate to the modern form of society. This is exactly the problem which Durkheim poses at the opening of The Division of Labour: ‘Is it our duty to seek to become a thorough and complete human being. one quite sufficient unto himself; or, on the contrary, to be only a part of a whole, the organ of an organism?’ The analysis contained in the work, in Durkheim’s view, demonstrates conclusively that organic solidarity is the ‘normal’ type in modern societies, and consequently that the era of the ‘universal man’ is finished. The latter ideal, which predominated up to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in western Europe is incompatible with the diversity of the contemporary order. In preserving this ideal. by contrast. Marx argues the obverse: that the tendencies which are leading to the destruction of capitalism are themselves capable of effecting a recovery of the ‘universal’ properties of man. which are shared by every individual.”

Anthony Giddens (1938) British sociologist

Source: Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1971), pp. 230-231.

Hope, Intelligence, Problem, Decision

“In their work, designers often become expert with the device they are designing. Users are often expert at the task they are trying to perform with the device. […] Professional designers are usually aware of the pitfalls. But most design is not done by professional designers, it is done by engineers, programmers, and managers.”

Donald A. Norman book The Design of Everyday Things

Source: The Design of Everyday Things (1988, 2002), Ch. 6, p. 156.

“Flaubert and Nietzsche have emphasized the importance of standing up and walking in the process of thinking. The peripatetics were perhaps motivated by the same awareness. Yet purposeful walking — what we call marching — is an enemy of thought and is used as a powerful instrument for the suppression of independent thought and the inculcation of unquestioned obedience.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Entry (1960)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)

Motivation, Thinking

“The ignorant are not blissful; they are the butt of a joke they're not even aware of.”

Neil Strauss (1973) American writer

Rules of the Game: The Style Diaries (2007)

“The composer who is frightened of losing his artistic integrity through contact with a mass audience is no longer aware of the meaning of the word art.”

Aaron Copland (1900–1990) American composer, composition teacher, writer, and conductor

Aaron Copland and His World, ISBN 9780691124704.

Art

“Very few writers of verse can read their work to keep their listeners aware of the beauty of sense, that sense of beauty from the powerful, delicate ways in which sense is made by poetry.”

John Hollander (1929–2013) American poet

'Poetry' September 1995

Beauty, Way, Sense, Reading

“For me, Still's pictorial dramas are an extension of the Greek Persephone myth. As he himself has expressed it, his paintings are 'of the Earth, the Damned, and of the Recreated'. Every shape becomes an organic entity, inviting the multiplicity of associations inherent in all living things. To me they form a theogony of the most elementary consciousness, hardly aware of itself beyond the will to live – a profound and moving experience. [in the catalogue introduction for the first one-man-show of Clyfford Still]”

Mark Rothko (1903–1970) American painter

in Art of this Century, February 12 – March 2, 1946, Peggy Guggenheim Papers on the work of Clyfford Still; as quoted in Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics, ed. Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, p. 203
1940's

Painting

“The effect, if not the prime office, of criticism is to make our absorption and our enjoyment of the things that feed the mind as aware of itself as possible, since that awareness quickens the mental demand, which thus in turn wanders further and further for pasture. This action on the part of the mind practically amounts to a reaching out for the reasons of its interest, as only by its ascertaining them can the interest grow more various. This is the very education of our imaginative life.”

Henry James (1843–1916) American novelist, short story author, and literary critic

The New Novel (1914).

Life, Education, Imagination, Parting

“Consider how one silently reads the following sentence: ‘The forest ranger did not permit us to enter the reserve without a permit’. Note that on its ﬁrst occurrence, the word ‘permit’ was (silently) pro-nounced with the stress on the second syllable (permit), hereas on its second occurrence the stress was on the ﬁrst syllable (permit)… The syntactic and semantic analysis required to determine the appropriate meaning of the word ‘permit’ must have taken place prior to the allocation of the stress pattern; and this in turn, must have taken place prior to the phonemic image entering awareness.”

Max Velmans (1942) British psychologist

Source: Is human information processing conscious?, 1991, p. 657; Cited in: Giorgio Marchetti, "A presentation of attentional semantics." Cognitive processing 7.3 (2006): 163-194.

Reading

“It wasn't money or love that I was looking for. I had a heightened sense of awareness, was set in my ways, impractical and a visionary to boot. My mind was strong like a trap and I didn't need any guarantee of validity.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Source: Chronicles: Vol. One (2004), p. 9

Love, Money, Way, Sense

“Seeing the water birds on the lake increase in number day by day, I thought to myself how nice it would be if it snowed before we got back to the Palace—the garden would look so beautiful; and then, two days later, while I was away on a short visit, lo and behold, it did snow. As I watched the rather drab scene at home, I felt both depressed and confused. For some years now I had existed from day to day in listless fashion, taking note of the flowers, the birds in song, the way the skies change from season to season, the moon, the frost and snow, doing little more than registering the passage of time. How would it all turn out? The thought of my continuing loneliness was unbearable, and yet I had managed to exchange sympathetic letters with those of like mind—some contacted via fairly tenuous connections—who would discuss my trifling tales and other matters with me; but I was merely amusing myself with fictions, finding solace for my idleness in foolish words. Aware of my own insignificance, I had at least managed for the time being to avoid anything that might have been considered shameful or unbecoming; yet here I was, tasting the bitterness of life to the very full.”

Murasaki Shikibu book The Diary of Lady Murasaki

trans. Richard Bowring (Penguin Books, 1996)
The Diary of Lady Murasaki

Life, Beauty, Way, Home

“There is a vast amount of energy which disappears inside organisations, or is expended going in directions which don't end up leading anywhere. If all that energy is properly directed, it can add up to a huge amount of power that can be used to produce visible results. That's why I think that over the last three years, as the level of awareness shared by the staff has increased, each individual's understanding has also developed. I believe this has meant that the total amount of energy in the company has increased more than it would have by simply increasing the number of staff. That is to say, the overall potential within the company has become more fully realised.”

Satoru Iwata (1959–2015) Japanese video game programmer and businessman

Iwata's Ask: Special Edition Interview http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wii/special_edition_interview

Understanding, Thinking

“Plato and his objectivistic successors … preserved the awareness of differences that pragmatism has been invented to deny—the difference between thinking in the laboratory and in philosophy, and consequently the difference between the destination of mankind and its present course.”

Max Horkheimer book Eclipse of Reason

Source: Eclipse of Reason (1947), p. 53.

Thinking

“The labor unions of Indiana proceeded to meet and resolve. They resolved in such violent and vicious language that no partisan press could be found willing to print the resolutions. Long afterward I learned that I was shadowed for six months by Secret Service men in the fear that I might be assaulted by some over-zealous union man. Of this I was not aware at the time, or I should have taken steps to have prevented it. Whether I am a Presbyterian or a fatalist I do not know, but I do know that if I am to be shot, I will never be hanged.”

Thomas R. Marshall (1854–1925) American politician who served as the 28th Vice President of the United States

Recollections of Thomas R. Marshall: A Hoosier Salad (1925), Chapter XIV

Men, Secret, Fear, Learning

“Both men were aware of the imperative held by all warrior races to serve honor before survival.”

Steven Pressfield book Last of the Amazons

Mother Bones (Narrator) p. 10
Last of the Amazons (2002)

Men

“The cultural obsession with the art object is slowly disappearing and being replaced by what might be called "systems consciousness." Actually, this shifts from the direct shaping of matter to a concern for organizing quantities of energy and information. Seen another way, it is a refocusing of aesthetic awareness – based on future scientific-technological evolution – on matter-energy information exchanges and away from the invention of solid artefacts. These new systems prompt us not to look at the skin of objects, but at those meaningful relations within and between their visible boundaries.”

Jack Burnham (1931) American art historian

Source: Beyond Modern Sculpture, 1968, p. 369-70

Art, Way, Future

“It has long seemed obvious — and is, in fact, the characteristic tone of European science — that “science” means breaking up complexes into their component elements. Isolate the elements, discover their laws, then reassemble them, and the problem is solved. All wholes are reduced to pieces and piecewise relations between pieces.
The fundamental “formula” of Gestalt theory might be expressed in this way. There are wholes, the behaviour of which is not determined by that of their individual elements, but where the part-processes are themselves determined by the intrinsic nature of the whole. It is the hope of Gestalt theory to determine the nature of such wholes…
We hear a melody and then, upon hearing it again, memory enables us to recognize it. But what is it that enables us to recognize the melody when it is played in a new key? The sum of the elements is different, yet the melody is the same; indeed, one is often not even aware that a transposition has been made… Is it really true that when I hear a melody I have a sum of individual tones (pieces) which constitute the primary foundation of my experience? Is not perhaps the reverse of this true? What I really have, what I hear of each individual note, what I experience at each place in the melody is apart which is itself determined by the character of the whole,”

Max Wertheimer (1880–1943) Co-founder of Gestalt psychology

As quoted in: George Klir (2013), Facets of Systems Science, p. 25
"Gestalt Theory," 1924

Law, Hope, Way, Nature

“In 1992 by chance I witnessed a drum and bugle corps competition on television and became aware of three-valve bugles. A year later my wife, Donna, and I attended a performance in La Mirada of the previous year's winner. I have experienced fine concert band performances and also good symphonies in my life, but what was not prepared for what I experienced that day. The entire bugle corps was turned away from us playing softly and suddenly they turned toward us and projected a very thick chord. Every hair on my body stood up (and I have a lot of it) and I decided at that moment to buy some of these instruments. In the next year I purchased approximately $14,000 worth of bugles. After having completed an orchestrational family all the way down to the contrabass bugle, I began writing. This album is the result of this particular interest in my sixth decade in music.”

Clare Fischer (1928–2012) American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader

Written in 1997, from the liner notes for Jazz Corps (1998)

Life, Family, Music, Way

“Around 13.8 billion years after the Big Bang, and almost four billion years since life first evolved, something strange began to happen: Tiny parts of the universe became conscious, and came to know something about themselves and the universe of which they are a part… Eventually, some of these tiny parts of the universe - the parts we call ‘scientists’ and ‘scientifically-informed laypeople’ - came to understand the Big Bang and the evolutionary process through which they had come to exist. After an eternity of unconsciousness, the universe now had some glimmering awareness that it existed and some understanding of where it had come from.”

Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)

Source: Darwin, God and the Meaning of Life: How Evolutionary Theory Undermines Everything You Think You Know (2010), p. 152

Life, Understanding, Universe, Parting

“As a great socialist power the Soviet Union is fully aware of its responsibility to the peoples for preserving and strengthening peace. We are open to peaceful, mutually beneficial cooperation with states on all continents. We are for the peaceful settlement of all disputable international problems through serious, equal, and constructive talks.”

Konstantin Chernenko (1911–1985) Soviet politician

Quoted in "The Struggle of the USSR for Peace and Security" - Page 6 - History - 1984

People, Peace, Problem

“We in the ADF occupy a special constitutional role. We train for mastery of military force and are entrusted and sanctioned by the Government to employ extreme violence in support of national interests. Moreover, I am all too aware, that in many conflicts, rape is systematically employed by soldiers against women. Any nexus between an Army such as the one I aspire to lead and sexual assault is absolutely unacceptable. I will take all necessary steps to stamp out any hint of it among my soldiers.”

David Morrison (1956) Australian army general

Address at the International Women's Day Conference (2013)

Women, Support, Training

“Even when heavy enemy battle losses are substantiated, one must be careful not to judge their psychological effect on the bassis of occidental values. Indeed, American military professionals who fought in the Pacific during World War II or in Korea became acutely aware of differing oriental values with respect to human life, and knew the pitfalls of putting too much store in the impact of heavy casualties on the morale of a determined foe or on the will of a ruthless totalitarian government.”

Bruce Palmer Jr. (1913–2000) United States Army Chief of Staff

Source: The 25-Year War: America's Military Role in Vietnam (1984), p. 165

Life, War, World, Loss

“Doing your own gardening makes you much more aware of food cycles, what it takes to grow it, and what the range of food quality is.”

Roger Swain (1949) American television personality

[Van Tuyl, Laura, The Christian Science Monitor, 14 April 1989, Why His Garden Grows. Food that's safe and superior to store-bought is one reason; history is another. Interview: Roger Swain of 'Victory Garden', http://www.csmonitor.com/1989/0414/pswain.html]

Food

“Materialism ends up denying the existence of any irreducible subjective qualitative states of sentience or awareness.”

John Rogers Searle (1932) American philosopher

Consciousness and Language (2002) p. 47.

“All is gone, all is gone, admit it, take flight.
I gagged twice, doubled, tears blinding my sight.
My mind it was mangled, I ran into the night
Leaving all of love's ashes behind me.
The wind knocks my window, the room it is wet.
The words to say I'm sorry, I haven't found yet.
I think of her often and hope whoever she's met
Will be fully aware of how precious she is.
Ah, my friends from the prison, they ask unto me,
"How good, how good does it feel to be free?"”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

And I answer them most mysteriously,
"Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?"
Song lyrics, Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964), Ballad In Plain D

Love, Hope, Feeling, Bird

“Lamarck, after having first studied botany with success, had then turned his attention to conchology, and soon became aware that in the newer (or tertiary) strata of the earth's crust there were a multitude of fossil species of shells… He also observed that other shells were so nearly allied to living forms, that it was difficult not to suspect that they had been connected by a common bond of descent. He therefore proposed that the element of time should enter into the definition of a species, and that it should run thus: 'A species consists of individuals all resembling each other, and reproducing their like by generation, so long as the surrounding conditions do not undergo changes sufficient to cause their habits, characters, and forms to vary. He came at last to the conclusion, that none of the animals and plants now existing were primordial creations, but were all derived from pre-existing forms, which, after they may have gone on for indefinite ages reproducing their like, had, at length, by the influence of alterations in climate and in the animate world, been made to vary gradually, and adapt themselves to new circumstances, some of them deviating, in the course of ages, so far from their original type as to have claims to be regarded as new species.”

Charles Lyell (1797–1875) British lawyer and geologist

Source: The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863), Ch.20, p. 389-390

Age, World, Study, Change

“Naturally, when considering the whole issue of who will live in Europe, one could argue that this problem will be solved by successful integration. The reality, however, is that we’re not aware of any examples of successful integration… In countering arguments for successful integration, we must also point out that if people with diverging goals find themselves in the same system or country, it won’t lead to integration, but to chaos. It’s obvious that the culture of migrants contrasts dramatically with European culture. Opposing ideologies and values cannot be simultaneously upheld, as they are mutually exclusive. To give you the most obvious example, the European people think it desirable for men and women to be equal, while for the Muslim community this idea is unacceptable, as in their culture the relationship between men and women is seen in terms of a hierarchical order. These two concepts cannot be upheld at the same time. It’s only a question of time before one or the other prevails. Of course one could also argue that communities coming to us from different cultures can be re-educated. But we must see – and Bishop Tőkés also spoke about this – that now the Muslim communities coming to Europe see their own culture, their own faith, their own lifestyles and their own principles as stronger and more valuable than ours. So, whether we like it or not, in terms of respect for life, optimism, commitment, the subordination of individual interests and ideals, today Muslim communities are stronger than Christian communities. Why would anyone want to adopt a culture that appears to be weaker than their own strong culture? They won’t, and they never will! Therefore re-education and integration based on re-education cannot succeed.”

Viktor Orbán (1963) Hungarian politician, chairman of Fidesz

Life, Women, Men, People

“And the most depressing sign about [ Josiah Royce's ] thinking is that he seems perfectly aware how this makes no provision either for immortality or for real freedom, and yet he appears to have no uneasiness under it, but to contemplate this ghastly destiny of ours with a complacency even savoring of self-satisfaction.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Letter to W.T. Harris; Quoted in: James McLachlan, "George Holmes Howison: The Conception of God Debate and the Beginnings of Personal Idealism." The Personalist Forum. Vol. 15, Nr. 1 (1995). p. 6; Cited in Dwayne Tunstall, Yes, But Not Quite: Encountering Josiah Royce's Ethico-Religious Insight, Fordham Univ Press, 2009. p. 12
Journals

Thinking, Freedom, Appearance

“Keep the boss aware. Bosses, after all, are held responsible by their own bosses for the performance of their subordinates. They must be able to say: "I know what Anne [or John] is trying to do."”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1990s and later, Managing for the Future: The 1990's and Beyond (1992), p. 139

“For 30 years I have watched from a central position the manifestations of the will power of Great Britain, and I do not believe the people will consent to be edged, pushed, talked and cozened out of India. No nation of which I am aware, great or small, has ever voluntarily or tamely suffered such an overwhelming injury to its interests or such a harsh abrogation of its rights. After all, there are British rights and interests in India. Two centuries of effort and achievement, lives given on a hundred fields, far more lives given and consumed in faithful and devoted service to the Indian people themselves. All this has earned us rights of our own in India.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1931/jan/26/india-1#column_702 in the House of Commons (26 January 1931) <br class="br">The 1930s

People, Faith, Effort, Suffering

Quotes about awareness page 4

Quotes about awareness
page 4