Conscious Quotes - Page 18

• As the mind of each man is conscious of good or evil, so does he conceive within his breast hope or fear, according to his actions.

  Ovid

  Men, Evil, Mind

  Ovid (1851). “The Fasti ; Tristia ; Pontic epistles ; Ibis ; and Halieuticon of Ovid”, p.31

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• A mind conscious of right laughs at the falsehoods of rumour.
  [Lat., Conscia mens recti famae mendacia risit.]

  Ovid

  Laughing, Mind, Rumours

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• Guilt once harbored in the conscious breast, intimidates the brave, degrades the great.

  Samuel Johnson

  Brave, Guilt, Intimidating

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• Before dinner men meet with great inequality of understanding; and those who are conscious of their inferiority have the modesty not to talk; when they have drunk wine, every man feels himself happy, and loses that modesty, and grows impudent and vociferous; but he is not improved; he is only not sensible of his defects.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wine, Men, Drunk

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1859). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.64

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• A mind that is conscious of its integrity scorns to say more than it means to perform.

  Robert Burns

  Integrity, Mean, Promise

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• One of the most gracious dispensations of God concerning His saints is their lovely unawareness of sanctity. The nearer they move to Him, the more conscious are they of sin. If it were impossible at times not to note their own growth in grace, it were impossible also to forget that it was all by His power. If they could be persuaded to admit their progress and talk of it at all, the language of their heart would be this: 'If God could do this in me, He could do it in anyone

  Bill Vaughan

  Moving, Heart, Grace

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• Command by instinct is swifter, subtler, deeper, more accurate, more in touch with reality than command by conscious mind. The discovery takes one's breath away.

  Michael Novak

  Reality, Discovery, Mind

  Michael Novak (1993). “The Joy of Sports: End Zones, Bases, Baskets, Balls, and the Consecration of the American Spirit”, p.172, Rowman & Littlefield

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• There is something about conscious tact that is very irritating.

  Agatha Christie

  Tact, Irritating

  agatha christie (1941). “n or m?”

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• When we are conscious of the least comparative merit in ourselves, we should take as much care to conceal the value we set upon it, as if it were a real defect; to be elated or vain upon it is showing your money before people in want.

  Colley Cibber

  Real, Vanity, People

  Colley Cibber (1830). “An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber, Comedian”, p.27

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• [The poet] is endowed to speak for those who do not have the gift of language, or to see for those who - for whatever reasons - are less conscious of what they are living through. It is as though the risks of the poet's existence can be put to some use beyond her own survival.

  Adrienne Rich

  Risk, Survival, Use

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• How wonderfully beautiful is the delineation of the characters of the three patriarchs in Genesis! To be sure if ever man could, without impropriety, be called, or supposed to be, "the friend of God," Abraham was that man. We are not surprised that Abimelech and Ephron seem to reverence him so profoundly. He was peaceful, because of his conscious relation to God.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Beautiful, Character, Men

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Henry Nelson Coleridge (1851). “Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge”, p.73

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• I think most of us become self-critical as soon as we become self-conscious.

  Ellen Goodman

  Thinking, Self, Critical

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• The Freudians describe the conscious as a small lit area, all white, and the unconscious as a great dark marsh full of monsters. In their view, the monsters reach up, grab you by the ankles, and try to drag you down.

  Doris Lessing

  Dark, Views, White

  Doris May Lessing (1996). “Putting questions differently: interviews with Doris Lessing, 1964-1994”

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• My theory is that poems are written because of a state of emotional irritation. It may be present for some time before the poet is conscious of what is tormenting him. The emotional irritation springs, probably, from subconscious combinations of partly forgotten thoughts and feelings. Coming together, like electrical currents in a thunder storm, they produce a poem. ... the poem is written to free the poet from an emotional burden.

  Sara Teasdale

  Spring, Emotional, Irritation

  Sara Teasdale, William Drake (1984). “Mirror of the Heart: Poems of Sara Teasdale”, MacMillan Publishing Company

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• Being aware of your breath forces you into the present moment - the key to all inner transformation. Whenever you are conscious of the breath, you are absolutely present. You may also notice that you cannot think and be aware of your breathing. Conscious breathing stops your mind.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Thinking, Breathing, Keys

  Eckhart Tolle (2006). “A New Earth (Oprah #61): Awakening to Your Life's Purpose”, p.150, Penguin

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• Diaries tell their little tales with a directness, a candor, conscious or unconscious, a closeness of outlook, which gratifies our sense of security. Reading them is like gazing through a small clear pane of glass. We may not see far and wide, but we see very distinctly that which comes within our field of vision.

  Agnes Repplier

  Reading, Glasses, Vision

  Agnes Repplier (1898). “Varia”

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• Wit is artificial; humor is natural. Wit is accidental; humor is inevitable. Wit is born of conscious effort; humor, of the allotted ironies of fate. Wit can be expressed only in language; humor can be developed sufficiently in situation.

  Agnes Repplier

  Humor, Fate, Effort

  Agnes Repplier (1893). “Essays in Idleness”, Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin

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• All are to be men of genius in their degree,--rivulets or rivers, it does not matter, so that the souls be clear and pure; not dead walls encompassing dead heaps of things, known and numbered, but running waters in the sweet wilderness of things unnumbered and unknown, conscious only of the living banks, on which they partly refresh and partly reflect the flowers, and so pass on.

  John Ruskin

  Running, Sweet, Wall

  John Ruskin (1860). “The Stones of Venice...”, p.58

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• The whole difference between a man of genius and other men, it has been said a thousand times, and most truly, is that the first remains in great part a child, seeing with the large eyes of children, in perpetual wonder, not conscious of much knowledge--conscious, rather of infinite ignorance, and yet infinite power; a fountain of eternal admiration, delight, and creative force within him meeting the ocean of visible and governable things around him.

  John Ruskin

  Children, Ocean, Ignorance

  John Ruskin (1907). “The stones of Venice”

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• The fact of our deriving constant pleasure from whatever is a type or semblance of divine attributes, and from nothing but that which is so, is the most glorious of all that can be demonstrated of human nature; it not only sets a great gulf of specific separation between us and the lower animals, but it seems a promise of a communion ultimately deep, close, and conscious, with the Being whose darkened manifestations we here feebly and unthinkingly delight in.

  John Ruskin

  Animal, Promise, Delight

  John Ruskin (1858). “Modern Painters: (pt.3) Of ideas of beauty”, p.86

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• Envy, like a cold prison, benumbs and stupefies; and, conscious of its own impotence, folds its arms in despair.

  Jeremy Collier

  Envy, Despair, Arms

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• ... it's hard to be politically conscious and upwardly mobile at the same time.

  Jane Wagner

  Mobile, Hard

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• Youth gives a sense of new days dawning bright, going on for ever, and a kind of tamped-down excitement which keeps breaking through even the worst days of poverty, depression and loneliness. But then youth is something which only exists in retrospect; you are barely conscious of it while you have it.

  Fay Weldon

  Loneliness, Giving, New Day

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• The measure of our rationality determines the degree of vividness with which we appreciate the needs of other life, the extent to which we become conscious of the real character of our own motives and impulses, the ability to harmonize conflicting impulses in our own life and in society, and the capacity to choose adequate means for approved ends.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Real, Character, Mean

  Reinhold Niebuhr (2015). “Reinhold Niebuhr: Major Works on Religion and Politics: (Library of America #263)”, p.204, Library of America

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• In one form or another, conscious or unconscious, we have all become propagandists; integrity alone can keep us truthful.

  Freya Stark

  Integrity, Truthful, Form

  Freya Stark (1964). “The Journey's Echo: Selections”

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