Quotes about consciousness
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Alice A. Bailey photo
Alice A. Bailey photo
Alice A. Bailey photo
Alice A. Bailey photo
Bell Hooks photo
James Eastland photo

“The white people of the South do not have race prejudice. They have race consciousness, and they are proud to possess this awareness of the significance of race. Had they not possessed it, the South would have been mongrelized and southern civilization destroyed long ago.”

James Eastland (1904–1986) American politician

Simkin, John (September 1997). "James Eastland" http://spartacus-educational.com/USAeastland.htm
Speech in the United States Senate after the Brown v. Board of Education landmark court decision (27th May, 1954)
1950s

Yuval Noah Harari photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“Today we need a nation of minute men; citizens who are not only prepared to take up arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as a basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

“Message to Those Participating in Roosevelt Day Commemoration (29 January 1961) http://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/life-of-john-f-kennedy/john-f-kennedy-quotations/commemorative-message-on-roosevelt-day." Papers of John F. Kennedy. Presidential Papers, "New Minute Men Urged by Kennedy," The New York Times(30 January 1961) pg. 13
1961

Annie Besant photo
Herbert Marcuse photo
Sabine Hossenfelder photo
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel photo

“Universal History exhibits the gradation in the development of that principle whose substantial purport is the consciousness of Freedom. The analysis of the successive grades, in their abstract form, belongs to Logic; in their concrete aspect to the Philosophy of Spirit.”

Here it is sufficient to state that the first step in the process presents that immersion of Spirit in Nature which has been already referred to ; the second shows it as advancing to the consciousness of its freedom. But this initial separation from Nature is imperfect and partial, since it is derived immediately from the merely natural state, is consequently related to it, and is still encumbered with it as an essentially connected element. The third step is the elevation of the soul from this still limited and special form of freedom to its pure universal form ; that state in which the spiritual essence attains the consciousness and feeling of itself. These grades are the ground-principles of the general process; but how each of them on the other hand involves within itself a process of formation, constituting the links in a dialectic of transition, to particularise this must be preserved for the sequel. Here we have only to indicate that Spirit begins with a germ of infinite possibility, but only possibility, containing its substantial existence in an undeveloped form, as the object and goal which it reaches only in its resultant full reality. In actual existence Progress appears as an advancing from the imperfect to the more perfect; but the former must not be understood abstractly as only the imperfect, but as something which involves the very opposite of itself the so-called perfect as a germ or impulse. So reflectively, at least possibility points to something destined to become actual; the Aristotelian δύναμιςis https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B4%CF%8D%CE%BD%CE%B1%CE%BC%CE%B9%CF%82 also potentia, power and might. Thus the Imperfect, as involving its opposite, is a contradiction, which certainly exists, but which is continually annulled and solved; the instinctive movement the inherent impulse in the life of the soul to break through the rind of mere nature, sensuousness, and that which is alien to it, and to attain to the light of consciousness, i. e. to itself.
Lectures on the History of History Vol 1 p. 58-59 John Sibree translation (1857), 1914
Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1832), Volume 1

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel photo
Baruch Spinoza photo
Baruch Spinoza photo
Miguel de Unamuno photo
Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo
Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo
Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo
Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo
Wilhelm Reich photo
Herbert Read photo

“The revolutionary artist is born into a world of clichés, of stale images and signs which no longer pierce the consciousness to express reality. He therefore invents new symbols, perhaps a whole new symbolic system.”

Herbert Read (1893–1968) English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art

The Philosophy of Modern Art: Collected Essays (1971).
Other Quotes

David Chalmers photo

“The easy problems of consciousness are those that seem directly susceptible to the standard methods of cognitive science, whereby a phenomenon is explained in terms of computational or neural mechanisms. The hard problems are those that seem to resist those methods. …The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience.”

David Chalmers (1966) Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist

When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. ...When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought.
"Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness," 1995

Vātsyāyana photo

“The sex fantasies man has, the animal postures, the Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - all that is part of that consciousness which is transmitted from generation to generation.”

Vātsyāyana Indian logician

Uppaluri Gopala Krishnamurti in: The Mystique of Enlightenment: Conversations with U.G. Krishnamurti http://books.google.com/books?id=Y6efkbAiXKoC&pg=PA125, Smriti Books, 2005, p. 125

Frances Kellor photo
Amrita Sher-Gil photo

“At stake was not only a serious and viable artistic career as a woman, but the development of a subjectivity that was being defined through the self-portrait. conscious of being both muse and maker, Sher-Gil took on the position of artist and object with a double consciousness of being both.”

Amrita Sher-Gil (1913–1941) Hungarian Indian artist

Above two quotes by art historian Rakhee Balaram in the self in making AMRITA SHER-GIL, 7 December 2013, Kiran Nadar Museum of Arts. http://knma.in/exhibition/self-making-amrita-sher-gil-0.,

Tyagaraja photo

“We now come to the underpinning contention of the previous monograph. Psychological phenomena, especially those involved in learning and education, stem from or are related to states of consciousness.”

Gordon Pask (1928–1996) British psychologist

Using the argument which relates the information available about conscious processes to the type of experimental situation, we maintain that the basic unit of psychological /educational observation is a conversation. In order to test hypotheses and explicate the conversational transactions, it is necessary to invoke various tools and explanatory constructs. These are coherent enough to count when interlocked as a theory, and this theory was dubbed conversation theory.
Source: Conversation Theory (1976), p. 3.

Jo Freeman photo

“A highly competent Bitch often deprecates herself by refusing to recognize her own superiority…. Bitches are among the most unsung of the unsung heroes of this society. They are the pioneers, the vanguard, the spearhead. Whether they want to be or not this is the role they serve just by their very being. Many would not choose to be the groundbreakers for the mass of women for whom they have no sisterly feelings but they cannot avoid it. Those who violate the limits, extend them; or cause the system to break…. Their major psychological oppression is not a belief that they are inferior but a belief that they are not…. Like most women they were taught to hate themselves as well as all women. In different ways and for different reasons perhaps, but the effect was similar. Internalization of a derogatory self-concept always results in a good deal of bitterness and resentment. This anger is usually either turned in on the self —making one an unpleasant person or on other women — reinforcing the social cliches about them. Only with political consciousness is it directed at the source — the social system…. We must be strong, we must be militant, we must be dangerous. We must realize that Bitch is Beautiful and that we have nothing to lose. Nothing whatsoever.”

Jo Freeman (1945) writer, lawyer

The BITCH Manifesto (Fall, 1968, © 1969) http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/bitch.htm, as accessed Aug. 22, 2010 (also published as Joreen, The Bitch Manifesto, in Notes From the Second Year (N.Y.: Shulamith Firestone & Anne Koedt, 1970))

Konstantin Chernenko photo

“You know, comrades, that Konstantin Ustinovich has been gravely ill for a long time, and has been in the hospital in recent months. On the part of the Fourth Main Department, all necessary measures were taken in order to treat Konstantin Ustinovich. But the illness did not submit to the cure, it started to weaken his systems first slowly, and then faster and faster. It became especially aggravated as a result of pneumonia in both lungs, which Konstantin Ustinovich developed during his vacation in Kislovodsk. There were periods when we succeeded in alleviating the lung and heart insufficiencies, and during those periods Konstantin Ustinovich found enough strength to come to work. Several times he conducted Politburo sessions, and put in work days, although shortened ones. Emphysema of the lungs and the aggravated lung and heart insufficiency had worsened significantly in the last two or three weeks. Another, accompanying illness had developed—chronic hepatitis, i. e. liver failure with its transformation into cirrhosis. The cirrhosis of the liver and the worsening dystrophic changes in the organs and tissues led to the situation where not with standing intensive therapy, which was administered actively on a daily basis, the state of his health gradually deteriorated. On March 10 at 3:00 p. m., Konstantin Ustinovich lost consciousness, and at 19:20 death occurred as a result of heart failure.”

Konstantin Chernenko (1911–1985) Soviet politician

Yevgeni Chazov, spoken in a special session of the Central Committee one day after Chernenko died.

Russell Brand photo
Kancha Ilaiah photo
Colin Wilson photo

“The evolutionary urge drives man to seek for intenser forms of fulfillment, since his basic urge is for more life, more consciousness, and this contentment has an air of stagnation that the healthy mind rejects.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

This recognition lies at the centre of my own 'outsider theory': that there are human beings to whom comfort means nothing, but whose happiness consists in following an obscure inner-drive, an 'appetite for reality'.
Source: Tree By Tolkien (1974), p. 32

Ingmar Bergman photo
Alan Moore photo
Alan Moore photo
John Stuart Mill photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“It seems to be a fact of life that human beings cannot continue to do wrong without eventually reaching out for some thin rationalization to clothe the obvious wrong in the beautiful garments of righteousness. The philosopher-psychologist William James used to talk a great deal about the stream of consciousness. He says that the very interesting and unique thing about human nature is that man had the capacity temporarily to block the stream of consciousness and place anything in it that he wants to, and so we often end up justifying the rightness of the wrong. This is exactly what happened during the days of slavery. Even the Bible and religion were misused to crystallize the patterns of the status quo. And so it was argued from pulpits across the nation that the Negro was inferior by nature, because of Noah’s curse upon the children of Ham. The apostle Paul’s dictum became a watchword: Servants, be obedient to your master. And then one brother had probably studied the logic of the great philosopher Aristotle. You know Aristotle did a great deal to bring into being what we know as formal logic, and he talked about the syllogism, which had a major premise and a minor premise and a conclusion. And so this brother could put his argument in the framework of an Aristotelian syllogism. He could say, All men are made in the image of God. This was the major premise; then came the minor premise: God, as everybody knows, is not a Negro. Therefore, the Negro is not a man. This was the type of reasoning that prevailed.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Address to Cornell College (1962)

Robert Greene photo
Teal Swan photo
Will Durant photo

“If history remains neutral and does not condemn and declare such acts as immoral, it would fail to create any consciousness about these evil deeds.”

Mubarak Ali (1941) Historian, activist, scholar

Dimensions of History, Chapter: The judgment of History, p. 77
History, What History Tells Us, Dimensions of History

Helen Keller photo

“Once I knew the depth where no hope was, and darkness lay on the face of all things. Then love came and set my soul free. Once I knew only darkness and stillness. Now I know hope and joy. Once I fretted and beat myself against the wall that shut me in. Now I rejoice in the consciousness that I can think, act and attain heaven. My life was without past or future; death, the pessimist would say, "a consummation devoutly to be wished."”

But a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living. Night fled before the day of thought, and love and joy and hope came up in a passion of obedience to knowledge. Can anyone who has escaped such captivity, who has felt the thrill and glory of freedom, be a pessimist?
Optimism (1903)

Kim Il-sung photo
Jaroslav Kvapil photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo

“The worldwide quest for community typified by the networks of the Aquarian Conspiracy is an attempt to boost that attenuated power. To cohere. To kindle wider consciousness.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Twelve, Human Connections: Relationships Changing

Marilyn Ferguson photo
Dylan Moran photo
Manolis Glezos photo

“We had absolute consciousness that it was a historic moment... No struggle for what you believe in is ever futile.”

Manolis Glezos (1922–2020) Greek politician

[Alderman, Liz, Since Nazi Occupation, a Fist Raised in Resistance, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/06/world/europe/since-nazi-occupation-a-fist-raised-in-resistance.html, 2 April 2020, The New York Times, 5 September 2014]

Marilyn Ferguson photo
David Pearce (philosopher) photo

“Some days will be sublime. Others will be merely wonderful. But critically, there will be one particular texture ("what it feels like") of consciousness that will be missing from our lives; and that will be the texture of nastiness.”

David Pearce (philosopher) (1959) British transhumanist

" Feeling Groovy, Forever https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/sirius20120314", Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, 14 Mar. 2012

David Pearce (philosopher) photo
David Pearce (philosopher) photo
Immanuel Kant photo
H. H. Asquith photo

“[T]he bond which united them, if their critics were to be believed, might be a tranquil consciousness of effortless superiority.”

H. H. Asquith (1852–1928) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Remarks to a dinner given to Asquith in the House of Commons by MPs who had graduated from Balliol College (22 July 1908), quoted in The Times (23 July 1908), p. 12
Prime Minister

Marilyn Ferguson photo
Sean Carroll photo
Thomas Henry Huxley photo
Thomas Henry Huxley photo
Thomas Henry Huxley photo
Swapan Dasgupta photo

“Some people (cabal members) who thought that they had a monopoly over truth and over wisdom found that the masses didn’t agree with them…These people are now confused …and want to say that they’re the repository of the entire truth and everything else is false consciousness.”

Swapan Dasgupta (1955) Indian politician, journalist and columnist

Swapan Dasgupta, a Rajya Sabha MP, in reference to the Lutyens’ cabal, had stated in a debate at Jaipur Literature Festival 2017, https://www.opindia.com/2020/04/lutyens-media-freedom-of-expression-siddharth-varadarajan-arnab-goswami-sonia-gandhi/

John Lennox photo

“... energy, light, gravity, and consciousness ... You believe in these things because of their explanatory power as concepts. ... God is not a monolith ... God is Himself a fellowship ...”

John Lennox (1943) British mathematician and philosopher of science

[Who Created God? John Lennox at The Veritas Forum at UCLA, 10 May 2011, YouTube, The Veritas Forum, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIknACeeS0g] (quote at 8:35 of 10:39)

Alex Grey photo
Helena Roerich photo
Patañjali photo

“The wisdom obtained in the higher states of consciousness is different from that obtained by inference and testimony as it refers to particulars.”

Patañjali (-200–-150 BC) ancient Indian scholar(s) of grammar and linguistics, of yoga, of medical treatises

Patanjali, in Hinduism http://books.google.co.in/books?id=GmQ_yp4vVhsC&pg=PA63, p. 63.

Otto von Bismark photo
Diane Ackerman photo
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel photo
Michel Henry photo
Alice A. Bailey photo

“In the process of dissipating glamour, the way of the greatest potency is to realise the necessity to act purely as a channel for the energy of the soul. If the disciple can make right alignment and consequent contact with his soul, the results show as increased light. This light pours down and irradiates not only the mind, but the brain consciousness as well. He sees the situation more clearly: he realises the facts of the case as against his "vain imaginings"; and so the "light shines upon his way."”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

He is not yet able to see truly in the larger sweeps of consciousness; the group glamour and, of course, the world glamour remain to him as yet a binding and bewildering mystery, but his own immediate way begins to clear, and he stands relatively free from the fog of his ancient and distorting emotional miasmas. Alignment, contact with his soul, and then steadfastness, are the keynotes to success.
Source: Glamour: A World Problem (1950), The Nature of Glamor

Donna Tartt photo
Annie Besant photo
Benito Mussolini photo
Annie Besant photo
John Strachey photo
Prevale photo

“Night is the consciousness of one's essence.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) La notte è la coscienza della propria essenza.
Source: prevale.net

Isaac Mashman photo
Diadochos of Photiki photo

“To be enlightened is to obliterate all self-consciousness. What need is there to make others understand? This shows precisely that he has not yet attained real awakening and final enlightenment.”

As quoted in Enchantment and Disenchantment: Love and Illusion in Chinese Literature by Wai-yee Li (Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 221

Ron English photo

“A stream of consciousness leads to an ocean of revelations.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy (2016)

Felix Adler photo
Theodore Kaczynski photo
Sigmund Freud photo

“The most complicated achievements of thought are possible without the assistance of consciousness.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis
Frithjof Schuon photo
Frithjof Schuon photo
Prevale photo

“Night is the consciousness of one's essence.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: La notte è la coscienza della propria essenza.

Mooji photo
Mooji photo
Alice A. Bailey photo