Consciousness and Self-Knowledge

‘My idea of good company, Mr Elliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.’ ‘You are mistaken,’ said he gently, ‘that is not good company, that is the best.’

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,

The mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that ‘w-a-t-e-r’ meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, joy, set it free! The Story of My Life (1902) ch. 4

Man is only a reed, the weakest thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed.

The feast of reason and the flow of soul.

As an experience, madness is terrific … and in its lava I still find most of the things I write about.

Examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day.

Humour is emotional chaos remembered in tranquillity.

Do you want to know the great drama of my life? It’s that I have put my genius into my life; all I’ve put into my works is my talent.

I s’pect I growed. Don’t think nobody never made me.

As for myself, I always willingly acknowledge my own self as the principal cause of every good and of every evil which may befall me; therefore I have always found myself capable of being my own pupil, and ready to love my teacher.

What one great thing would you dare to dream if you knew you could not fail? The easiest person to deceive is one's own self.

Habit is stronger than reason.

Self-knowledge is best learned, not by contemplation, but by action. Strive to do your duty and you will soon discover of what stuff you are made.

In every person who comes near you look for what is good and strong; honor that; try to imitate it, and your faults will drop off like dead leaves when their time comes.

We understand why children are afraid of the darkness, but why are men afraid of the light?

Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.

My own education operated by a succession of eye-openers each involving the repudiation of some previously held belief.

Loneliness comes about when I am alone without being able . . . to keep myself company.

Born Originals , how comes it to pass that we die Copies ?

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.

One can only face in others what one can face in oneself.

We have to cease to think, if we refuse to do it in the prison house of language; for we cannot reach further than the doubt which asks whether the limit we see is really a limit.