{ "type": "topic", "site": { "name": "Leafy Quotes", "language": "en", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com" }, "formats": "Every page has two versions with the same data: JSON (the page address + .json) and markdown (the page address + .md). Append .json or .md to any `url` in this document.", "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness", "heading": "Quotes about consciousness", "json": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness.json", "markdown": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness.md", "quotes_count": 92, "authors_count": 30, "parent": { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking", "heading": "Quotes about thinking" }, "children": [], "quotes": [ { "id": "fbc1811c-e01e-45c8-a158-649ba1045e19", "slug": "happiness-and-suffering", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sam-harris/waking-up/happiness-and-suffering", "text": "Happiness and suffering, however extreme, are mental events. The mind depends upon the body, and the body upon the world, but everything good or bad that happens in your life must appear in consciousness to matter. This fact offers ample opportunity to make the best of bad situations—changing your perception of the world is often as good as changing the world—but it also allows a person to be miserable even when all the material and social conditions for happiness have been met. During the normal course of events, your mind will determine the quality of your life.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Sam Harris", "slug": "sam-harris", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sam-harris" }, "book": { "title": "Waking Up", "slug": "waking-up", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sam-harris/waking-up" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 204, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "happiness", "slug": "happiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness" }, { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sam_Harris#Waking_Up_(2014)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T14:30:03" }, { "id": "f79393af-6d77-4499-a1ff-c5c92464f6d6", "slug": "consciousness-is-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sam-harris/waking-up/consciousness-is-the", "text": "Consciousness is the one thing in this universe that cannot be an illusion.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Sam Harris", "slug": "sam-harris", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sam-harris" }, "book": { "title": "Waking Up", "slug": "waking-up", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sam-harris/waking-up" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 54, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sam_Harris#Waking_Up_(2014)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T14:30:03" }, { "id": "0a96a598-a1bb-438a-ba81-7d4f50679eec", "slug": "we-might-feel", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/graham-hancock/supernatural/we-might-feel", "text": "We might feel very sure that there is no more to reality that the material world in which we live, but we cannot prove that this is the case. Theoretically there could be other realms, other dimensions, as all religious traditions and quantum physics alike maintain. Theoretically, the brain could be as much a receiver as a generator of consciousness and thus might be fine-tuned in altered states to pick up wavelengths that are normally not accessible to us.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Graham Hancock", "slug": "graham-hancock", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/graham-hancock" }, "book": { "title": "Supernatural", "slug": "supernatural", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/graham-hancock/supernatural" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "reality", "slug": "reality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reality" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock#Supernatural:_Meetings_with_the_Ancient_Teachers_of_Mankind_(2006)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:27" }, { "id": "4fbef453-c473-46c3-aad3-5d2852d2383c", "slug": "we-have-no-instrument", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-okri/the-age-of-magic/we-have-no-instrument", "text": "\"We have no instrument by which to record the absolute nature of reality, because whatever instrument we use is filtered through consciousness.\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ben Okri", "slug": "ben-okri", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-okri" }, "book": { "title": "The Age of Magic", "slug": "the-age-of-magic", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-okri/the-age-of-magic" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "reality", "slug": "reality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reality" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ben_Okri#The_Age_of_Magic_(2014)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:03" }, { "id": "8922f80d-8eca-4ef9-98d6-d54f6b025b0b", "slug": "still-sitting-there", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/fredric-brown/martians-go-home/still-sitting-there", "text": "Still sitting there, still looking up in the tree. At something that isn’t there? Luke wondered. Or at something that isn’t there for me but is there for him, and which of us is right? And he thinks that I don’t exist and I think I do, and which of us is right about that? Well, I am, on that point if no other. I think, therefore I am. But how do I know he’s there? Why couldn’t he be a figment of my imagination? Silly solipsism, the type of wondering just about everybody goes through sometime during adolescence, and then recovers from. But it gives to wonder all over again when you and other people start seeing things differently or start seeing different things.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Fredric Brown", "slug": "fredric-brown", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/fredric-brown" }, "book": { "title": "Martians, Go Home", "slug": "martians-go-home", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/fredric-brown/martians-go-home" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 324, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "reality", "slug": "reality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reality" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "existence", "slug": "existence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/existence" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fredric_Brown#Martians,_Go_Home_(1955)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:05" }, { "id": "59e100bc-2e28-451f-87a9-fb7501dca6fb", "slug": "if-were-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-allen-paulos/innumeracy/if-were-not", "text": "If we’re not keenly aware of the choices we’re making, we’re not likely to work for better ones.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Allen Paulos", "slug": "john-allen-paulos", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-allen-paulos" }, "book": { "title": "Innumeracy", "slug": "innumeracy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-allen-paulos/innumeracy" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 176, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "choices", "slug": "choices", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/choices" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Allen_Paulos#Innumeracy:_Mathematical_Illiteracy_and_its_Consequences_(1988)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:01:58" }, { "id": "b7e8bc7f-8247-4842-942f-6ed040e00496", "slug": "but-in-reality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/yuval-noah-harari/21-lessons-for-the-21st-century/but-in-reality", "text": "But in reality, there is no reason to assume that artificial intelligence will gain consciousness, because intelligence and consciousness are very different things. Intelligence is the ability to solve problems. Consciousness is the ability to feel things such as pain, joy, love and anger. We tend to confuse the two because in humans and other mammals intelligence goes hand in hand with consciousness. Mammals solve most problems by feeling things. Computers, however, solve problems in a very different way.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Yuval Noah Harari", "slug": "yuval-noah-harari", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/yuval-noah-harari" }, "book": { "title": "21 Lessons for the 21st Century", "slug": "21-lessons-for-the-21st-century", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/yuval-noah-harari/21-lessons-for-the-21st-century" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "artificial intelligence", "slug": "artificial-intelligence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/artificial-intelligence" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Yuval_Noah_Harari#21_Lessons_for_the_21st_Century_(2018)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:01:15" }, { "id": "f8fc9dd7-fa75-4249-862d-09f4bded9197", "slug": "three-revolutions-mark", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-e-leakey/the-origin-of-humankind/three-revolutions-mark", "text": "Three revolutions mark the history of life on earth. The first was the origin of life itself... The second... was the origin of multicellular organisms... The origin of human consciousness... was the third... Life became aware of itself, and began to transform the world of nature to its own ends.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Richard E. Leakey", "slug": "richard-e-leakey", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-e-leakey" }, "book": { "title": "The Origin Of Humankind", "slug": "the-origin-of-humankind", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-e-leakey/the-origin-of-humankind" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "evolution", "slug": "evolution", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evolution" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Leakey#The_Origin_of_Humankind_(1994)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:00:06" }, { "id": "40f75ed7-5219-4e8d-bd97-2b05e1284b69", "slug": "in-order-to-be-able", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-e-leakey/the-origin-of-humankind/in-order-to-be-able", "text": "In order to be able to deceive intentionally, an animal must have a sense of how its actions appear to another individual. Such an ability requires self-awareness.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Richard E. Leakey", "slug": "richard-e-leakey", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-e-leakey" }, "book": { "title": "The Origin Of Humankind", "slug": "the-origin-of-humankind", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-e-leakey/the-origin-of-humankind" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "lies", "slug": "lies", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/lies" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Leakey#The_Origin_of_Humankind_(1994)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:00:06" }, { "id": "16c85527-cde6-43ea-80a1-9870c2b95aa8", "slug": "this-tendency-to-anthropomorphize", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-e-leakey/the-origin-of-humankind/this-tendency-to-anthropomorphize", "text": "This tendency to anthropomorphize flows naturally from the context in which consciousness evolved. Consciousness is a social tool for understanding the behavior of others by modelling it on one's own feelings.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Richard E. Leakey", "slug": "richard-e-leakey", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-e-leakey" }, "book": { "title": "The Origin Of Humankind", "slug": "the-origin-of-humankind", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-e-leakey/the-origin-of-humankind" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Leakey#The_Origin_of_Humankind_(1994)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:00:06" }, { "id": "c290f32c-68fa-4645-be46-521532817c3c", "slug": "that-in-you", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth/that-in-you", "text": "That in you which recognizes madness as madness (even if it is your own) is sanity, is the arising awareness, is the end of insanity.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "A New Earth", "slug": "a-new-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "madness", "slug": "madness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/madness" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_New_Earth#Chapter_5,_The_Pain_Body", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:04" }, { "id": "8febcc2c-9bcc-4dca-bf14-0491ab369e06", "slug": "being-aware-of-your", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth/being-aware-of-your", "text": "Being aware of your breathing takes attention away from thinking and creates space. It is one way of generating consciousness. Although the fullness of consciousness is already there as the unmanifested, we are here to bring consciousness into this dimension.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "A New Earth", "slug": "a-new-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "meditation", "slug": "meditation", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meditation" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_New_Earth#Chapter_8,_The_Discovery_of_Inner_Space", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:04" }, { "id": "7d9596e6-9080-4c7d-98ff-9113f834285c", "slug": "when-you-become", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth/when-you-become", "text": "When you become aligned with the whole, you become a conscious part of the interconnectedness of the whole and its purpose: the emergence of consciousness into this world. As a result, spontaneous helpful occurrences, chance encounters, coincidences, and synchronistic events happen much more frequently.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "A New Earth", "slug": "a-new-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "chance", "slug": "chance", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/chance" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_New_Earth#Chapter_9,_Your_Inner_Purpose", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:04" }, { "id": "5d108af6-94cb-43e8-8319-f5409deee0a1", "slug": "the-new-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth/the-new-earth", "text": "The new earth arises as more and more people discover that their main purpose in life is to bring the light of consciousness into this world and so use whatever they do as a vehicle for consciousness.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "A New Earth", "slug": "a-new-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "meaning of life", "slug": "meaning-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_New_Earth#Chapter_10,_A_New_Earth", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:04" }, { "id": "0a27e49a-92c5-4034-9fee-1ef7324ab117", "slug": "until-very-recently", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth/until-very-recently", "text": "Until very recently, the transformation of human consciousness – also pointed to by the ancient teachers – was no more than a possibility, realized by a few rare individuals here and there, irrespective of cultural or religious background. A widespread flowering of human consciousness did not happen because it was not yet imperative. A significant portion of the earth’s population will soon recognize, if they haven’t already done so, that humanity is now faced with a stark choice: Evolve or die. A still relatively small but rapidly growing percentage of humanity is already experiencing within themselves the breakup of the old egoic mind patterns and the emergence of a new dimension of consciousness.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "A New Earth", "slug": "a-new-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "evolution", "slug": "evolution", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evolution" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_New_Earth#Chapter_10,_A_New_Earth", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:04" }, { "id": "ec1fa927-df8c-45a7-b993-dee14bc15ba0", "slug": "when-you-yield", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth/when-you-yield", "text": "When you yield internally, when you surrender, a new dimension of consciousness opens up. If action is possible or necessary, your action will be in alignment with the whole and supported by creative intelligence, the unconditioned consciousness which in a state of inner openness you become one with.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "A New Earth", "slug": "a-new-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "acceptance", "slug": "acceptance", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/acceptance" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_New_Earth#Chapter_2,_Ego:_the_Current_State_of_Humanity", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:03" }, { "id": "53ff82a0-a1aa-48f7-9439-fe21a9d6a873", "slug": "you-realize-your", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth/you-realize-your", "text": "You realize your true identity as consciousness itself, rather than what consciousness had identified with. That's the peace of God.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "A New Earth", "slug": "a-new-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "god", "slug": "god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god" }, { "name": "peace of mind", "slug": "peace-of-mind", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/peace-of-mind" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_New_Earth#Chapter_2,_Ego:_the_Current_State_of_Humanity", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:03" }, { "id": "4aa07d56-0596-4b26-867d-9881575a398f", "slug": "for-a-moment", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth/for-a-moment", "text": "For a moment, I was able to stand back from my own mind and see it from a deeper perspective, as it were. There was a brief shift from thinking to awareness. I was still in the men’s room, but alone now, looking at my face in the mirror. At that moment of detachment from my mind, I laughed out loud. It may have sounded insane, but it was the laughter of sanity... “Life isn’t as serious as my mind makes it out to be.” That’s what the laughter seemed to be saying.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "A New Earth", "slug": "a-new-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "laughter", "slug": "laughter", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/laughter" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_New_Earth#Chapter_2,_Ego:_the_Current_State_of_Humanity", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:02" }, { "id": "3ec5f536-a5a9-45fd-8b20-11d916c4c85f", "slug": "trying-to-become", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth/trying-to-become", "text": "Trying to become a good or better human being sounds like a commendable and highminded thing to do, yet it is an endeavor you cannot ultimately succeed in unless there is a shift in consciousness.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "A New Earth", "slug": "a-new-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "kindness", "slug": "kindness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/kindness" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_New_Earth#Chapter_1,_The_Flowering_of_Human_Consciousness", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:02" }, { "id": "3c1acd74-6a2d-430c-b3be-6c57ea913ba2", "slug": "a-mature-first", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth/a-mature-first", "text": "A mature first year student at twenty five, I saw myself as an intellectual in the making, and I was convinced that all the answers to the dilemmas of human existence could be found through the intellect, that is to say, by thinking. I didn’t realize yet that thinking without awareness is the main dilemma of human existence.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "A New Earth", "slug": "a-new-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_New_Earth#Chapter_2,_Ego:_the_Current_State_of_Humanity", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:02" }, { "id": "e33d9a55-ebdf-46c2-9390-fc6fddfc5f81", "slug": "being-spiritual-has", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth/being-spiritual-has", "text": "Being spiritual has nothing to do with what you believe and everything to do with your state of consciousness.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "A New Earth", "slug": "a-new-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "spirituality", "slug": "spirituality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/spirituality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle#A_New_Earth_(2005)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:01" }, { "id": "d09e18f6-625d-4f97-a644-5a16cc6eccb0", "slug": "an-essential-part", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth/an-essential-part", "text": "An essential part of the awakening is the recognition of the unawakened you.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "A New Earth", "slug": "a-new-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "self-knowledge", "slug": "self-knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/self-knowledge" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_New_Earth#Chapter_1,_The_Flowering_of_Human_Consciousness", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:01" }, { "id": "c4ac524f-fe97-4352-8d59-c7c607fd2cf9", "slug": "being-must-be-felt", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth/being-must-be-felt", "text": "Being must be felt. It can't be thought.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "A New Earth", "slug": "a-new-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle#A_New_Earth_(2005)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:01" }, { "id": "b88a7dfd-c71c-45e8-80ec-3a76969b4766", "slug": "awareness-is-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth/awareness-is-the", "text": "Awareness is the greatest agent for change.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "A New Earth", "slug": "a-new-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "change", "slug": "change", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/change" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle#A_New_Earth_(2005)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:01" }, { "id": "acfddfe0-2222-44b6-a494-349b5d5d2d25", "slug": "once-there-is-a-certain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth/once-there-is-a-certain", "text": "Once there is a certain degree of presence, of still and alert attention in human beings’ perceptions, they can sense the divine life essence, the one indwelling consciousness or spirit in every creature, every life form, recognize it as one with their own essence and so love it as themselves. Until this happens, however, most humans see only the outer forms, unaware of the inner essence, just as they are unaware of their own essence and identify only with their own physical and psychological form.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "A New Earth", "slug": "a-new-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "love", "slug": "love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "spirituality", "slug": "spirituality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/spirituality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_New_Earth#Chapter_1,_The_Flowering_of_Human_Consciousness", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:01" }, { "id": "8ea17131-8c22-4993-bfdc-51f0ce1f92e4", "slug": "right-now-we-are", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth/right-now-we-are", "text": "Right now we are being given the experience we need to raise our consciousness.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "A New Earth", "slug": "a-new-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "experience", "slug": "experience", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/experience" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle#A_New_Earth_(2005)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:01" }, { "id": "809e4a12-c457-4539-80d1-a4992d5f1cf5", "slug": "a-new-species", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth/a-new-species", "text": "A new species is arising on the planet. It is arising now, and you are it!", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "A New Earth", "slug": "a-new-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "evolution", "slug": "evolution", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evolution" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle#A_New_Earth_(2005)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:01" }, { "id": "71f7f1a0-e4c2-4800-8c00-0064b4417f80", "slug": "is-humanity-ready", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth/is-humanity-ready", "text": "Is humanity ready for a transformation of consciousness, an inner flowering so radical and profound that compared to it the flowering of plants, no matter how beautiful, is only a pale reflection? Can human beings lose the density of their conditioned mind structures and become like crystals or precious stones, so to speak, transparent to the light of consciousness? Can they defy the gravitational pull of materialism and materiality and rise above identification with form that keeps the ego in place and condemns them to imprisonment within their own personality?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "A New Earth", "slug": "a-new-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "materialism", "slug": "materialism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/materialism" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle#A_New_Earth_(2005)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:01" }, { "id": "5f670bc8-0ec7-4bd5-9c03-d1db9ce41f34", "slug": "presence-is-a-state", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth/presence-is-a-state", "text": "Presence is a state of inner spaciousness.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "A New Earth", "slug": "a-new-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle#A_New_Earth_(2005)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:01" }, { "id": "fd47b8ff-151a-48f2-b556-3260ad55dd93", "slug": "by-knowing-yourself", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks/by-knowing-yourself", "text": "By knowing yourself as the awareness in which phenomenal existence happens, you become free of dependency on phenomena and free of self seeking in situations, places, and conditions. In other words, what happens or doesn't happen is not that important anymore. Things lose their heaviness, their seriousness. A playfulness comes into your life. You recognize this world as a cosmic dance, the dance of form. (Ch 5)", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "Stillness Speaks", "slug": "stillness-speaks", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "play", "slug": "play", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/play" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle#Stillness_Speaks_(2003)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:00" }, { "id": "ade17061-868a-4b4e-afbb-7c94cdfd1cc7", "slug": "to-bring-your", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks/to-bring-your", "text": "To bring your attention to a stone, a tree, or an animal does not mean to think about it, but simply to perceive it, to hold it in your awareness.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "Stillness Speaks", "slug": "stillness-speaks", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "nature", "slug": "nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle#Stillness_Speaks_(2003)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:00" }, { "id": "8f19fa87-5667-49f5-b5b6-85f408a4aa04", "slug": "confusion-anger-depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks/confusion-anger-depression", "text": "Confusion, anger, depression, violence, and conflict arise when humans forget who they are. Yet how easy it is to remember the truth and thus return home: I am not my thoughts, emotions, sense perceptions, and experiences. I am not the content of my life. I am Life. I am the space in which all things happen. I am consciousness. I am the Now. I Am. (Ch 4)", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "Stillness Speaks", "slug": "stillness-speaks", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "identity", "slug": "identity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/identity" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "the present", "slug": "the-present", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-present" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle#Stillness_Speaks_(2003)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:00" }, { "id": "d11c1dde-3296-4d3d-822b-0d93fd71f1a2", "slug": "finding-that-dimension", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks/finding-that-dimension", "text": "Finding that dimension frees you and the world from the suffering you inflict on yourself and others when the mind-made “little me” is all you know and runs your life. Love, joy, creative expansion, and lasting inner peace cannot come into your life except through that unconditioned dimension of consciousness. (Ch 2)", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "Stillness Speaks", "slug": "stillness-speaks", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "suffering", "slug": "suffering", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/suffering" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "ego", "slug": "ego", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ego" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle#Stillness_Speaks_(2003)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:54:59" }, { "id": "b83b45eb-3485-446b-bcf9-0b12c6a91c9a", "slug": "the-human-condition", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks/the-human-condition", "text": "The human condition: Lost in thought Most people spend their entire life imprisoned within the confines of their own thoughts. They never go beyond a narrow, mind-made, personalized sense of self that is conditioned by the past. In you, as in each human being, there is a dimension of consciousness far deeper than thought. It is the very essence of who you are. We may call it presence, awareness, the unconditioned consciousness. In the ancient teachings, it is the Christ within, or your Buddha nature.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "Stillness Speaks", "slug": "stillness-speaks", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "spirituality", "slug": "spirituality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/spirituality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle#Stillness_Speaks_(2003)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:54:59" }, { "id": "ae76d996-8531-4806-8dae-a6305daf0ffa", "slug": "you-are-that", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks/you-are-that", "text": "You are that awareness, disguised as a person. (Ch 1)", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "Stillness Speaks", "slug": "stillness-speaks", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "identity", "slug": "identity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/identity" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle#Stillness_Speaks_(2003)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:54:59" }, { "id": "72fc7919-f7b7-42d6-ac7a-a2326738c428", "slug": "a-moment-of-danger", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks/a-moment-of-danger", "text": "A moment of danger can bring about a temporary cessation of the stream of thinking and thus give you a taste of what it means to be present, alert, aware. (Ch 2)", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "Stillness Speaks", "slug": "stillness-speaks", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "the present", "slug": "the-present", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-present" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle#Stillness_Speaks_(2003)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:54:59" }, { "id": "5a2e1972-1f83-4ee7-b444-ff05375d26ff", "slug": "stillness-is-your", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks/stillness-is-your", "text": "Stillness is your essential nature. What is stillness? The inner space or awareness in which the words on this page are being perceived and become thoughts. Without that awareness, there would be no perception, no thoughts, no world. (Ch 1)", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "Stillness Speaks", "slug": "stillness-speaks", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "silence", "slug": "silence-2", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/silence-2" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle#Stillness_Speaks_(2003)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:54:59" }, { "id": "324317b9-5f0d-4202-8805-5d738cbb1ea8", "slug": "there-is-an-aliveness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks/there-is-an-aliveness", "text": "There is an aliveness in you that you can feel with your Being, not just in the head. Every cell is alive in that presence in which you don't need to think. Yet, in that state, if thought is required for some practical purpose, it is there. The mind can still operate, and it operated beautifully when the greater intelligence that you are uses it and expresses itself through it. (Ch 2)", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "Stillness Speaks", "slug": "stillness-speaks", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle#Stillness_Speaks_(2003)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:54:59" }, { "id": "1616b008-071a-492f-9498-699900e64d2a", "slug": "when-you-lose", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks/when-you-lose", "text": "When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world. Your innermost sense of self, of who you are, is inseparable from stillness. This is the “I Am” that is deeper than name and form.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "Stillness Speaks", "slug": "stillness-speaks", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "identity", "slug": "identity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/identity" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "silence", "slug": "silence-2", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/silence-2" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle#Stillness_Speaks_(2003)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:54:59" }, { "id": "3a4a81a2-ba6d-4545-acca-40517f760548", "slug": "our-descendants-will", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-maurice-bucke/cosmic-consciousness/our-descendants-will", "text": "Our descendants will sooner or later reach, as a race, the condition of cosmic consciousness, just as, long ago, our ancestors passed from simple consciousness into self consciousness.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Richard Maurice Bucke", "slug": "richard-maurice-bucke", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-maurice-bucke" }, "book": { "title": "Cosmic Consciousness", "slug": "cosmic-consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-maurice-bucke/cosmic-consciousness" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "evolution", "slug": "evolution", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evolution" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Maurice_Bucke#Cosmic_Consciousness_(1901)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:54:50" }, { "id": "e6f38cb5-d2ed-4d88-b873-94952b555b10", "slug": "its-extraordinary-how", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-conrad/lord-jim/its-extraordinary-how", "text": "It's extraordinary how we go through life with eyes half shut, with dull ears, with dormant thoughts. Perhaps it's just as well; and it may be that it is this very dullness that makes life to the incalculable majority so supportable and so welcome. Nevertheless, there can be but few of us who had never known one of these rare moments of awakening when we see, hear, understand ever so much — everything — in a flash — before we fall back again into our agreeable somnolence.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Joseph Conrad", "slug": "joseph-conrad", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-conrad" }, "book": { "title": "Lord Jim", "slug": "lord-jim", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-conrad/lord-jim" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "life", "slug": "life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lord_Jim#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:51:16" }, { "id": "22422d9f-2399-4ec2-b862-e58cb2928252", "slug": "if-you-were-capable", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-baxter/evolution/if-you-were-capable", "text": "If you were capable of thinking of an object from more than one point of view, you could imagine it doing all sorts of things. For Mother, consciousness was becoming more than just a tool for lying.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen Baxter", "slug": "stephen-baxter", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-baxter" }, "book": { "title": "Evolution", "slug": "evolution", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-baxter/evolution" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 337, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "lies", "slug": "lies", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/lies" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Baxter#Evolution_(2002)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:24" }, { "id": "e944b1a9-f5ed-4cbd-b2e2-cc3bf22deba1", "slug": "human-consciousness-was", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-baxter/timelike-infinity/human-consciousness-was", "text": "Human consciousness was an artificial thing. Once humans had believed that gods animated their souls, fighting their battles in the guise of humans. Later they had evolved the idea of the self-aware, self-directed consciousness. Now Michael saw that it had all been no more than an idea, a model, an illusion behind which to hide. He, the last man, need no longer cling to such outmoded comforts. There was no cognition, he realized. There was only perception.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen Baxter", "slug": "stephen-baxter", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-baxter" }, "book": { "title": "Timelike Infinity", "slug": "timelike-infinity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-baxter/timelike-infinity" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 307, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Baxter#Timelike_Infinity_(1992)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:23" }, { "id": "5b4a8ebd-d105-4b26-b672-5465f24c2b21", "slug": "repression-is-an-evolutionary", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia/sexual-personae/repression-is-an-evolutionary", "text": "Repression is an evolutionary adaptation permitting us to function under the burden of our expanded consciousness. For what we are conscious of could drive us mad.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Camille Paglia", "slug": "camille-paglia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia" }, "book": { "title": "Sexual Personae", "slug": "sexual-personae", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia/sexual-personae" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 16, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "psychology", "slug": "psychology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/psychology" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Camille_Paglia#Sexual_Personae:_Art_and_Decadence_from_Nefertiti_to_Emily_Dickinson_(1990)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:16" }, { "id": "74b0f2e4-b6ae-4d9e-9e1e-12e3d9705df6", "slug": "without-consciousness-and", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/clifford-d-simak/highway-of-eternity/without-consciousness-and", "text": "Without consciousness and intelligence, the universe would lack meaning.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Clifford D. Simak", "slug": "clifford-d-simak", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/clifford-d-simak" }, "book": { "title": "Highway of Eternity", "slug": "highway-of-eternity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/clifford-d-simak/highway-of-eternity" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "meaning of life", "slug": "meaning-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Clifford_D._Simak#Highway_of_Eternity_(1986)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:03" }, { "id": "786ec4c1-9a8a-4878-b070-cc21ebcca5b7", "slug": "the-greatest-barrier", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/p-d-ouspensky/the-psychology-of-mans-possible-evolution/the-greatest-barrier", "text": "The greatest barrier to consciousness is the belief that one is already conscious.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "P. D. Ouspensky", "slug": "p-d-ouspensky", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/p-d-ouspensky" }, "book": { "title": "The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution", "slug": "the-psychology-of-mans-possible-evolution", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/p-d-ouspensky/the-psychology-of-mans-possible-evolution" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/P._D._Ouspensky#The_Psychology_of_Man's_Possible_Evolution_(1950)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:13" }, { "id": "3b4d7c09-4aad-4a49-964b-2fd35b380a95", "slug": "never-neglect-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-vance/the-brave-free-men/never-neglect-the", "text": "Never neglect the wonder of conscious existence, which too soon comes to an end!", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jack Vance", "slug": "jack-vance", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-vance" }, "book": { "title": "The Brave Free Men", "slug": "the-brave-free-men", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-vance/the-brave-free-men" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 98, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "life", "slug": "life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jack_Vance#The_Brave_Free_Men_(1973%3B_serialized_1972)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:00" }, { "id": "f19677cf-aa85-4c2e-8c18-c583242c6df6", "slug": "our-awareness-is-all", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/breakfast-of-champions/our-awareness-is-all", "text": "Our awareness is all that is alive and maybe sacred in any of us. Everything else about us is dead machinery.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Kurt Vonnegut", "slug": "kurt-vonnegut", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut" }, "book": { "title": "Breakfast of Champions", "slug": "breakfast-of-champions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/breakfast-of-champions" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "holiness", "slug": "holiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/holiness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut#Breakfast_of_Champions_(1973)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:40" }, { "id": "0c287f5d-e63e-4746-931c-8853e9c23932", "slug": "are-zombies-possible", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-dennett/consciousness-explained/are-zombies-possible", "text": "Are zombies possible? They're not just possible, they're actual. We're all zombies.* Nobody is conscious – not in the systematically mysterious way that supports such doctrines as epiphenomenalism.* It would be an act of desperate intellectual dishonesty to quote this assertion out of context!", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Daniel Dennett", "slug": "daniel-dennett", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-dennett" }, "book": { "title": "Consciousness Explained", "slug": "consciousness-explained", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-dennett/consciousness-explained" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 406, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett#Consciousness_Explained_(1991)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:28" }, { "id": "a7e57aee-8fae-4568-be42-9044f0a3fc00", "slug": "the-world-of-our", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-james/the-varieties-of-religious-experience/the-world-of-our", "text": "The world of our experience consists at all times of two parts, an objective and a subjective part, of which the former may be incalculably more extensive than the latter, and yet the latter can never be omitted or suppressed. The objective part is the sum total of whatsoever at any given time we may be thinking of, the subjective part is the inner \"state\" in which the thinking comes to pass.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "William James", "slug": "william-james", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-james" }, "book": { "title": "The Varieties of Religious Experience", "slug": "the-varieties-of-religious-experience", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-james/the-varieties-of-religious-experience" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "reality", "slug": "reality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reality" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_James#The_Varieties_of_Religious_Experience_(1902)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:15" }, { "id": "3f8c7dd1-321c-435e-aad4-6f22aa631db4", "slug": "one-conclusion-was", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-james/the-varieties-of-religious-experience/one-conclusion-was", "text": "One conclusion was forced upon my mind at that time, and my impression of its truth has ever since remained unshaken. It is that our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness, definite types of mentality which probably somewhere have their field of application and adaptation. No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded. How to regard them is the question,—for they are so discontinuous with ordinary consciousness. Yet they may determine attitudes though they cannot furnish formulas, and open a region though they fail to give a map. At any rate, they forbid a premature closing of our accounts with reality.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "William James", "slug": "william-james", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-james" }, "book": { "title": "The Varieties of Religious Experience", "slug": "the-varieties-of-religious-experience", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-james/the-varieties-of-religious-experience" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_James#The_Varieties_of_Religious_Experience_(1902)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:15" }, { "id": "970281d9-26e8-411a-b273-c153c724ad0f", "slug": "an-acknowledgment-of-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber/the-eye-of-spirit/an-acknowledgment-of-the", "text": "An acknowledgment of the full spectrum of consciousness would profoundly alter the course of every one of the modern disciplines it touches—and that, of course, is an essential aspect of integral studies… A full-spectrum approach to human consciousness and behavior means that men and women have available to them a spectrum of knowing—a spectrum that includes, at the very least, the eye of flesh, the eye of mind, and the eye of spirit.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ken Wilber", "slug": "ken-wilber", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber" }, "book": { "title": "The Eye of Spirit", "slug": "the-eye-of-spirit", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber/the-eye-of-spirit" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber#The_Eye_of_Spirit:_An_Integral_Vision_for_a_World_Gone_Slightly_Mad_(1997)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:06" }, { "id": "433de893-1830-410a-9029-79c944f8810f", "slug": "the-integral-approach", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber/the-eye-of-spirit/the-integral-approach", "text": "The integral approach is committed to the full spectrum of consciousness as it manifests in all its extraordinary diversity. This allows the integral approach to recognize and honor the Great Holarchy of Being first elucidated by the perennial philosophy and the great wisdom traditions in general. … The integral vision embodies an attempt to take the best of both worlds, ancient and modern. But that demands a critical stance willing to reject unflinchingly the worst of both as well.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ken Wilber", "slug": "ken-wilber", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber" }, "book": { "title": "The Eye of Spirit", "slug": "the-eye-of-spirit", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber/the-eye-of-spirit" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "philosophy", "slug": "philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/philosophy" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber#The_Eye_of_Spirit:_An_Integral_Vision_for_a_World_Gone_Slightly_Mad_(1997)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:06" }, { "id": "3477b5df-4e72-4f38-b515-b4ab31f13abe", "slug": "gaias-main-problems", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber/a-brief-history-of-everything/gaias-main-problems", "text": "Gaia's main problems are not industrialization, ozone depletion, overpopulation, or resource depletion. Gaia's main problem is the lack of mutual understanding and mutual agreement in the noosphere about how to proceed with those problems. We cannot rein in industry if we cannot reach mutual understanding and mutual agreement based on a worldcentric moral perspective concerning the global commons. And we reach the worldcentric moral perspective through a difficult and laborious process of interior growth and transcendence.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ken Wilber", "slug": "ken-wilber", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber" }, "book": { "title": "A Brief History of Everything", "slug": "a-brief-history-of-everything", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber/a-brief-history-of-everything" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "ecology", "slug": "ecology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ecology" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber#A_Brief_History_of_Everything_(1996)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:06" }, { "id": "dd71e3fa-7579-477a-8a32-91605ffc7732", "slug": "in-other-words", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber/sex-ecology-spirituality/in-other-words", "text": "In other words, the real problem is not exterior. The real problem is interior. The real problem is how to get people to internally transform, from egocentric to sociocentric to worldcentric consciousness, which is the only stance that can grasp the global dimensions of the problem in the first place, and thus the only stance that can freely, even eagerly, embrace global solutions.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ken Wilber", "slug": "ken-wilber", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber" }, "book": { "title": "Sex, Ecology, Spirituality", "slug": "sex-ecology-spirituality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber/sex-ecology-spirituality" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "change", "slug": "change", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/change" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber#Sex,_Ecology,_Spirituality_(1995,_2000)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:05" }, { "id": "8600c330-6acd-4b67-ae56-57991a3f3727", "slug": "it-is-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber/sex-ecology-spirituality/it-is-the", "text": "It is the integrative power of vision-logic, I believe, and not the indissociation of tribal magic or the imperialism of mythic involvement that is desperately needed on a global scale. For it is vision-logic with its centauric/planetary worldview that, in my opinion, holds the only hope for the integration of the biosphere and the noosphere, the supranational organization of planetary consciousness, the genuine recognition of ecological balance, the unrestrained and unforced forms of global discourse, the nondominating and noncoercive forms of federated states, the unrestrained flow of worldwide communicative exchange, the production of genuine world citizens, and the enculturation of female agency (i.e., the integration of male and female, in both the noosphere and the biosphere)—all of which, in my opinion, is nevertheless simply the platform for the truly interesting forms of higher and transpersonal states of consciousness lying in our collective future—if there is one.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ken Wilber", "slug": "ken-wilber", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber" }, "book": { "title": "Sex, Ecology, Spirituality", "slug": "sex-ecology-spirituality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber/sex-ecology-spirituality" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "the future", "slug": "the-future", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber#Sex,_Ecology,_Spirituality_(1995,_2000)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:05" }, { "id": "5f38beca-3064-411b-96d8-2d9d35dafc9a", "slug": "saving-the-biosphere", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber/sex-ecology-spirituality/saving-the-biosphere", "text": "\"Saving the biosphere\" depends first and foremost on human beings reaching mutual understanding and unforced agreement as to common ends. And that intersubjective accord occurs only in the noosphere. Anything short of that noospheric accord will continue to destroy the biosphere.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ken Wilber", "slug": "ken-wilber", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber" }, "book": { "title": "Sex, Ecology, Spirituality", "slug": "sex-ecology-spirituality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber/sex-ecology-spirituality" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "ecology", "slug": "ecology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ecology" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber#Sex,_Ecology,_Spirituality_(1995,_2000)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:05" }, { "id": "327ef1cf-3f34-4e9d-bfcb-5c27f3039dbc", "slug": "global-consciousness-is-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber/sex-ecology-spirituality/global-consciousness-is-not", "text": "Global consciousness is not an objective belief that can be taught to anybody and everybody, but a subjective transformation in the interior structures that can hold belief in the first place, which itself is the product of a long line of inner consciousness development.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ken Wilber", "slug": "ken-wilber", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber" }, "book": { "title": "Sex, Ecology, Spirituality", "slug": "sex-ecology-spirituality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber/sex-ecology-spirituality" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "personal growth", "slug": "personal-growth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/personal-growth" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber#Sex,_Ecology,_Spirituality_(1995,_2000)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:05" }, { "id": "1313c069-aa57-451e-9e3b-bf34f7727dea", "slug": "to-be-shaken", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley/the-doors-of-perception/to-be-shaken", "text": "To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours the outer and inner world, not as they appear to an animal obsessed with survival or to a human being obsessed with words and notions, but as they are apprehended, directly and unconditionally, by Mind at Large — this is an experience of inestimable value to everyone and especially to the intellectual.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Aldous Huxley", "slug": "aldous-huxley", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley" }, "book": { "title": "The Doors of Perception", "slug": "the-doors-of-perception", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley/the-doors-of-perception" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "drugs", "slug": "drugs", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/drugs" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley#The_Doors_of_Perception_(1954)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:41:36" }, { "id": "e6f457d9-71fc-4a1e-b037-e4016c8450b2", "slug": "this-thing-up-here", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-campbell/the-power-of-myth/this-thing-up-here", "text": "This thing up here, this consciousness, thinks it's running the shop. It's a secondary organ. It's a secondary organ of a total human being, and it must not put itself in control. It must submit and serve the humanity of the body.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Joseph Campbell", "slug": "joseph-campbell", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-campbell" }, "book": { "title": "The Power of Myth", "slug": "the-power-of-myth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-campbell/the-power-of-myth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "the body", "slug": "the-body", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-body" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell#The_Power_of_Myth_(1988)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:41:25" }, { "id": "e059060f-7510-4de0-8692-b31a22b255ab", "slug": "let-us-record", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/virginia-woolf/the-common-reader-volume-1/let-us-record", "text": "Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall, let us trace the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Virginia Woolf", "slug": "virginia-woolf", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/virginia-woolf" }, "book": { "title": "The Common Reader: Volume 1", "slug": "the-common-reader-volume-1", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/virginia-woolf/the-common-reader-volume-1" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "writing", "slug": "writing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Virginia_Woolf#The_Common_Reader_(1925)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:41:14" }, { "id": "ddfdf94e-4ac4-46d8-bd07-6034bed4c5b5", "slug": "self-awareness-is-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/stranger-in-a-strange-land/self-awareness-is-not", "text": "Self awareness is not just a bunch of amino acids bumping together.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robert A. Heinlein", "slug": "robert-a-heinlein", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein" }, "book": { "title": "Stranger in a Strange Land", "slug": "stranger-in-a-strange-land", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/stranger-in-a-strange-land" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land#Miscellaneous_quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:44" }, { "id": "35e74b62-b0bd-4e7d-80f4-02ed7aececef", "slug": "its-hard-to-kill", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/its-hard-to-kill", "text": "It's hard to kill a creature once it lets you see its consciousness.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Contact", "slug": "contact", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 147, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "empathy", "slug": "empathy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/empathy" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Contact_(1985)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:28" }, { "id": "f2dac892-c7da-439a-8836-94e57ce9f9da", "slug": "we-are-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/cosmos/we-are-the", "text": "We are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to selfawareness. We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least, consciousness arose. Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Cosmos", "slug": "cosmos", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/cosmos" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "the universe", "slug": "the-universe", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-universe" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Cosmos_(1980)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:27" }, { "id": "1896c3b6-39f6-4445-a074-2b8286f302e5", "slug": "the-neurochemistry-of-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/cosmos/the-neurochemistry-of-the", "text": "The neurochemistry of the brain is astonishingly busy, the circuitry of a machine more wonderful than any devised by humans. But there is no evidence that its functioning is due to anything more than the 1014 neural connections that build an elegant architecture of consciousness.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Cosmos", "slug": "cosmos", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/cosmos" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 278, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "the brain", "slug": "the-brain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-brain" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Cosmos_(1980)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:27" }, { "id": "4c51df96-ba68-42b7-8fd5-7c526c09055b", "slug": "to-me-it-is-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/dragons-of-eden/to-me-it-is-not", "text": "To me it is not in the least demeaning that consciousness and intelligence are the result of “mere” matter sufficiently complexly arranged; on the contrary, it is an exalting tribute to the subtlety of matter and the laws of Nature.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Dragons of Eden", "slug": "dragons-of-eden", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/dragons-of-eden" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 221, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "intelligence", "slug": "intelligence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intelligence" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#The_Dragons_of_Eden_(1977)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:25" }, { "id": "0698a35d-308e-4ab8-8212-633527b61904", "slug": "my-fundamental-premise", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/dragons-of-eden/my-fundamental-premise", "text": "My fundamental premise about the brain is that its workings—what we sometimes call “mind”—are a consequence of its anatomy and physiology, and nothing more.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Dragons of Eden", "slug": "dragons-of-eden", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/dragons-of-eden" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 7, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "the brain", "slug": "the-brain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-brain" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#The_Dragons_of_Eden_(1977)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:25" }, { "id": "dbf32ad4-93e4-4c16-a223-6827c32acb36", "slug": "we-know-so-well", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/samuel-butler/the-way-of-all-flesh/we-know-so-well", "text": "We know so well what we are doing ourselves and why we do it, do we not? I fancy that there is some truth in the view which is being put forward nowadays, that it is our less conscious thoughts and our less conscious actions which mainly mould our lives and the lives of those who spring from us.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Samuel Butler", "slug": "samuel-butler", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/samuel-butler" }, "book": { "title": "The Way of All Flesh", "slug": "the-way-of-all-flesh", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/samuel-butler/the-way-of-all-flesh" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Samuel_Butler_(novelist)#The_Way_of_All_Flesh_(1903)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:54" }, { "id": "22306913-d6ab-4f55-9e6f-c39ecda10008", "slug": "for-my-part", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-hume/a-treatise-of-human-nature/for-my-part", "text": "For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. When my perceptions are remov'd for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. And were all my perceptions remov'd by death, and cou'd I neither think, nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate after the dissolution of my body, I shou'd be entirely annihilated, nor do I conceive what is farther requisite to make me a perfect non-entity. If any one upon serious and unprejudic'd reflexion, thinks he has a different notion of himself, I must confess I can reason no longer with him. All I can allow him is, that he may be in the right as well as I, and that we are essentially different in this particular. He may, perhaps, perceive something simple and continu'd, which he calls himself; tho' I am certain there is no such principle in me... But setting aside some metaphysicians of this kind, I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "David Hume", "slug": "david-hume", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-hume" }, "book": { "title": "A Treatise of Human Nature", "slug": "a-treatise-of-human-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-hume/a-treatise-of-human-nature" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "identity", "slug": "identity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/identity" }, { "name": "philosophy", "slug": "philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/philosophy" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Hume#Book_1:_Of_the_understanding", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:54" }, { "id": "794eacad-9a43-4815-bc2c-79db300dc8b6", "slug": "erosion-of-our", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/the-trouble-with-being-born/erosion-of-our", "text": "Erosion of our being by our infirmities: the resulting void is filled by the presence of consciousness, what am I saying? — that void is consciousness itself.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Emil Cioran", "slug": "emil-cioran", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran" }, "book": { "title": "The Trouble With Being Born", "slug": "the-trouble-with-being-born", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/the-trouble-with-being-born" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "suffering", "slug": "suffering", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/suffering" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "emptiness", "slug": "emptiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/emptiness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emil_Cioran#The_Trouble_With_Being_Born_(1973)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:43" }, { "id": "b6c7b05a-95c5-4891-b306-f52dd32bb7fd", "slug": "if-we-could", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/the-trouble-with-being-born/if-we-could", "text": "If we could sleep twenty-four hours a day, we would soon return to the primordial slime, the beatitude of that perfect torpor before Genesis-the dream of every consciousness sick of itself.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Emil Cioran", "slug": "emil-cioran", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran" }, "book": { "title": "The Trouble With Being Born", "slug": "the-trouble-with-being-born", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/the-trouble-with-being-born" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "sleep", "slug": "sleep", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/sleep" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emil_Cioran#The_Trouble_With_Being_Born_(1973)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:42" }, { "id": "90878ce6-1251-484a-b88b-de16546578ee", "slug": "no-position-is-so-false", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/the-trouble-with-being-born/no-position-is-so-false", "text": "No position is so false as having understood and still remaining alive.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Emil Cioran", "slug": "emil-cioran", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran" }, "book": { "title": "The Trouble With Being Born", "slug": "the-trouble-with-being-born", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/the-trouble-with-being-born" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "life", "slug": "life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emil_Cioran#The_Trouble_With_Being_Born_(1973)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:42" }, { "id": "2b0b8324-520e-4eaa-b3f5-7d0ae602b75f", "slug": "consciousness-is-much", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/the-trouble-with-being-born/consciousness-is-much", "text": "Consciousness is much more than the thorn, it is the dagger in the flesh.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Emil Cioran", "slug": "emil-cioran", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran" }, "book": { "title": "The Trouble With Being Born", "slug": "the-trouble-with-being-born", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/the-trouble-with-being-born" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "suffering", "slug": "suffering", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/suffering" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emil_Cioran#The_Trouble_With_Being_Born_(1973)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:42" }, { "id": "96456b41-b98e-4623-9fd3-3b2689ccd3eb", "slug": "better-to-be-an-animal", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/the-trouble-with-being-born/better-to-be-an-animal", "text": "Better to be an animal than a man, an insect than an animal, a plant than an insect, and so on. Salvation? Whatever diminishes the kingdom of consciousness and compromises its supremacy.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Emil Cioran", "slug": "emil-cioran", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran" }, "book": { "title": "The Trouble With Being Born", "slug": "the-trouble-with-being-born", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/the-trouble-with-being-born" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "salvation", "slug": "salvation", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/salvation" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emil_Cioran#The_Trouble_With_Being_Born_(1973)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:41" }, { "id": "af3fafe0-6790-479f-abd5-632d37eae154", "slug": "but-as-far", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/but-as-far", "text": "But as far as our own world is concerned, its gradual leveling-down — or, we might say, its death — appears to be proved. And how will this process affect the fate of our spirit? Will it wane with the degradation of the energy of our world and return to unconsciousness, or will it grow according as the utilizable energy diminishes and by virtue of the very efforts that it makes to retard this degradation and to dominate Nature? — for this it is that constitutes the life of the spirit. May it be that consciousness and its extended support are two powers in contraposition, the one growing at the expense of the other?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "nature", "slug": "nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#X_:_Religion,_the_Mythology_of_the_Beyond_and_the_Apocatastasis", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:23" }, { "id": "18548d73-ecf4-42fb-bb0c-e3ba579a1a12", "slug": "the-work-of-charity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/the-work-of-charity", "text": "The work of charity, of the love of God, is to endeavor to to liberate God from brute matter, to endeavor to give consciousness to everything, to spiritualize or universalize everything; it is to dream that the very rocks may find a voice and work in accordance with the spirit of this dream; it is to dream that everything that exists may become conscious, that the Word may become life.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "mercy", "slug": "mercy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mercy" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#IX_:_Faith,_Hope,_and_Charity", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:23" }, { "id": "003de633-d72b-45f1-a3f0-01e0ebad6115", "slug": "and-here-facing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/and-here-facing", "text": "And here, facing this supreme religious sacrifice, we reach the summit of the tragedy, the very heart of it — the sacrifice of our own individual consciousness upon the alter of the perfected Human Consciousness, of the Divine Consciousness. But is there really a tragedy? ...if we could succeed in understanding and feeling that we were going to enrich Christ, should we hesitate for a moment in surrendering ourselves to Him? Would the stream that flows into the sea, and feels in the freshness of its waters the bitterness of the salt of the ocean, wish to flow back to its source? would it wish to return to the cloud which drew it life from the sea? is it not joy to feel itself absorbed?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "sacrifice", "slug": "sacrifice", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/sacrifice" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#X_:_Religion,_the_Mythology_of_the_Beyond_and_the_Apocatastasis", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:23" }, { "id": "f072e118-da65-400b-95e5-545d6e2b87c1", "slug": "suffering-is-a-spiritual", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/suffering-is-a-spiritual", "text": "Suffering is a spiritual thing. It is the most immediate revelation of consciousness, and it may be that our body was given us simply in order that suffering might be enabled to manifest itself. A man who had never known suffering, either in greater or less degree, would scarcely possess consciousness of himself. The child first cries at birth when the air, entering into his lungs and limiting him, seems to say to him: You have to breathe me in order to live!", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "suffering", "slug": "suffering", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/suffering" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#IX_:_Faith,_Hope,_and_Charity", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:22" }, { "id": "d4b47f58-4263-402a-a02c-c316b0453285", "slug": "there-is-nothing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/there-is-nothing", "text": "There is nothing truly real, save that which feels, suffers, pities, loves and desires, save consciousness. And we need God in order to save consciousness; not in order to think existence, but in order to live it; not in order to know the why and how of it, but in order to feel the wherefore of it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "god", "slug": "god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god" }, { "name": "meaning of life", "slug": "meaning-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#VII_:_Love,_Suffering,_Pity", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:22" }, { "id": "a25e1e33-26da-429b-8889-7013e3885464", "slug": "consciousness-the-craving", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/consciousness-the-craving", "text": "Consciousness, the craving for more, more, always more, hunger of eternity and thirst of infinity, appetite for God — these are never satisfied. Each consciousness seeks to be itself and all other consciousnesses without ceasing to be itself; it seeks to be God. And matter, unconsciousness, tends to be less and less, tends to be nothing, its thirst being a thirst for repose. Spirit says: I wish to be! and matter answers: I wish not to be!", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "god", "slug": "god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#IX_:_Faith,_Hope,_and_Charity", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:22" }, { "id": "74f1ad5c-56ad-40f0-8eae-380310431a1b", "slug": "and-neither-ought", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/and-neither-ought", "text": "And neither ought we to be surprised by the affirmation that the consciousness of the Universe is composed and integrated by the consciousnesses of the beings which form the Universe, by the consciousnesses of all the beings that exist, and that nevertheless it remains a personal consciousness distinct from those which compose it. Only thus is it possible to understand how in God we live, move, and have our being.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "god", "slug": "god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#VII_:_Love,_Suffering,_Pity", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:22" }, { "id": "69e80bb8-e58e-41dc-a953-e2ff1f7b5ca4", "slug": "our-longing-to-save", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/our-longing-to-save", "text": "Our longing to save consciousness, to give personal and human finality to the Universe and to existence, is such that even in the midst of a supreme, an agonizing and lacerating sacrifice, we should still hear the voice that assured us that if our consciousness disappears, it is that the infinite and eternal Consciousness may be enriched thereby, that our souls may serve as a nutriment to the Universal soul.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "sacrifice", "slug": "sacrifice", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/sacrifice" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#VII_:_Love,_Suffering,_Pity", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:22" }, { "id": "62c3788a-270c-463a-96ad-1c094b3c8afc", "slug": "we-must-needs", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/we-must-needs", "text": "We must needs believe with faith, whatever counsels reason may give us, that in the depths of our own bodies, in animals, in plants, in rocks, in everything that lives, in all the Universe, there is a spirit that strives to know itself, to acquire consciousness of itself, to be itself — for to be oneself is to know oneself — to be pure spirit; and since it can only achieve this by means of the body, by means of matter, it creates and makes use of matter at the same time that it remains a prisoner of it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "faith", "slug": "faith", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "spirituality", "slug": "spirituality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/spirituality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#IX_:_Faith,_Hope,_and_Charity", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:22" }, { "id": "1dde2e46-47a7-46a1-ad11-027af63bf52b", "slug": "proceeding-from-ourselves", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/proceeding-from-ourselves", "text": "Proceeding from ourselves, from our own human consciousness, the only consciousness which we feel from within and in which feeling is identical with being, we attribute some sort of consciousness, more or less dim, to all living things, and even to the stones themselves, for they also live. And the evolution of organic beings is simply the struggle to realize fullness of consciousness through suffering, a continual aspiration to be others without ceasing to be themselves, to break and yet to preserve their proper limits.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "suffering", "slug": "suffering", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/suffering" }, { "name": "evolution", "slug": "evolution", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evolution" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#VII_:_Love,_Suffering,_Pity", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:22" }, { "id": "1703a7c6-7c40-43e6-8b41-100c22b52157", "slug": "in-the-vast", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/in-the-vast", "text": "In the vast all of the Universe, must there be this unique anomaly — a consciousness that knows itself, loves itself and feels itself, joined to an organism which can only live within such and such degrees of heat, a merely transitory phenomenon? No, it is not mere curiosity that inspires the wish to know whether or not the stars are inhabited by living organisms, by consciousness akin to our own, and a profound longing enters into that dream that our souls shall pass from star to star through the vast spaces of the heavens, in an infinite series of transmigrations. The feeling of the divine makes us wish and believe that everything is animated, that consciousness, in a greater or less degree, extends through everything. We wish not only to save ourselves, but to save the world from nothingness. And therefore God. Such is his finality as we feel it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "god", "slug": "god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god" }, { "name": "the universe", "slug": "the-universe", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-universe" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#VIII_:_From_God_to_God", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:22" }, { "id": "08cfbc34-4dc8-41d9-86ce-5f43326e0f4d", "slug": "the-only-way", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/the-only-way", "text": "The only way to give finality to the world is to give it consciousness. For where there is no consciousness there is no finality, finality presupposing a purpose. And... faith in God is based simply upon the vital need of giving finality to existence, of making it answer to a purpose. We need God, not in order to understand the why, but in order to feel and sustain the ultimate wherefore, to give a meaning to the Universe.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "god", "slug": "god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god" }, { "name": "meaning of life", "slug": "meaning-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#VII_:_Love,_Suffering,_Pity", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:22" }, { "id": "a123bfaa-dcd2-4ac5-97ce-93d20c5f8687", "slug": "the-wretched-consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/the-wretched-consciousness", "text": "The wretched consciousness shrinks from it own annihilation, and just as an animal spirit newly severed from the womb of the world, finds itself confronted with the world and knows itself distinct from it, so consciousness must needs desire to possess another life than that of the world itself.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "immortality", "slug": "immortality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/immortality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#III_:_The_Hunger_of_Immortality", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:21" }, { "id": "90d57dcc-3f99-4873-8476-1c58b33d1111", "slug": "apart-from-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/apart-from-the", "text": "Apart from the fact there is no normal standard of health, nobody has proved that man is necessarily cheerful by nature. And further, man, by the very fact of being man, of possessing consciousness, is, in comparison with the ass or the crab, a diseased animal. Consciousness is a disease.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "health", "slug": "health", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/health" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#I_:_The_Man_of_Flesh_and_Bone", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:20" }, { "id": "75a8e455-0b23-4153-85ef-f4bded524d49", "slug": "the-truth-is-sum", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/the-truth-is-sum", "text": "The truth is sum, ergo cogito — I am, therefore I think, although not everything that is thinks. Is not consciousness of thinking above all consciousness of being? Is pure thought possible, without consciousness of self, without personality? Can there exist pure knowledge without feeling, without that species of materiality which feelings lends to it? Do we not perhaps feel thought, and do we not feel ourselves in the act of knowing and willing? Could not the man in the stove [Descartes] have said: \"I feel, therefore I am\"? or \"I will, therefore I am\"? And to feel oneself, is it not perhaps to feel oneself imperishable?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "emotions", "slug": "emotions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/emotions" }, { "name": "philosophy", "slug": "philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/philosophy" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#II_:_The_Starting-Point", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:20" }, { "id": "75446aea-38f2-4494-8570-7fdff0b5609c", "slug": "if-consciousness-is-as-some", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/if-consciousness-is-as-some", "text": "If consciousness is, as some inhuman thinker has said, nothing more than a flash of light between two eternities of darkness, then there is nothing more execrable than existence.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "pessimism", "slug": "pessimism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/pessimism" }, { "name": "existence", "slug": "existence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/existence" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#I_:_The_Man_of_Flesh_and_Bone", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:20" }, { "id": "8553f39c-3278-496e-8160-a9649ac72cb7", "slug": "without-consciousness-there", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-jung/the-undiscovered-self/without-consciousness-there", "text": "Without consciousness there would, practically speaking, be no world, for the world exists as such only in so far as it is consciously reflected and considered by a psyche. Consciousness is a precondition of being.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Jung", "slug": "carl-jung", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-jung" }, "book": { "title": "The Undiscovered Self", "slug": "the-undiscovered-self", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-jung/the-undiscovered-self" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 48, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" }, { "name": "existence", "slug": "existence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/existence" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Jung#The_Undiscovered_Self_(1958)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:16" }, { "id": "f840511f-e7e6-4a07-b008-f650a4832614", "slug": "only-that-day", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henry-david-thoreau/walden/only-that-day", "text": "Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henry David Thoreau", "slug": "henry-david-thoreau", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henry-david-thoreau" }, "book": { "title": "Walden", "slug": "walden", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henry-david-thoreau/walden" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 375, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau#Walden_(1854)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:52" } ] }