Being Awake Quotes

We wake sleeping, and sleep waking. I do not see so clearly in my sleep; but as to my being awake, I never found it clear enough and free from clouds. ~ Michel De Montaigne

There was another world below - this was the problem. Another world below that had volume but no form. By day the sea was blue surface and whitecaps, a realistic navigational challenge, and the problem could be overlooked. By night, though, the mind went forth and dove down through the yielding - the violently lonely - nothingness on which the heavy steel ship traveled, and in every moving swell you saw a travesty of grids, you saw how truly and forever lost a man would be six fathoms under. Dry land lacked this z-axis. Dry land was like being awake. Even in chartless desert you could drop to your knees and pound land with your fist and land didn't give. Of course the ocean, too, had a skin of wakefulness. But every point on this skin was a point where you could sink and by sinking disappear. ~ Jonathan Franzen

He sleeps as if making up for years of being awake. ~ Erika Swyler

The true poet dreams being awake. ~ Charles Lamb

You are before being and not being, awake and dream take place in time. You have no time. ~ Robert Adams

Not causing harm requires staying awake. Part of being awake is slowing down enough to notice what we say and do. The more we witness our emotional chain reactions and understand how they work, the easier it is to refrain. It becomes a way of life to stay awake, slow down, and notice. ~ Pema Chodron

Sam woke to a feeling of utter, profound, incredible relief.
He closed his eyes as soon as he opened them, afraid that being awake would just invite something terrible to appear.
Astrid was back. And she was asleep with her head on his arm. His arm was asleep, completely numb, but as long as that blond head was right there his arm could stay numb.
She smelled like pine trees and campfire smoke.
He opened his eyes, cautious, almost flinching, because the FAYZ didn't make a habit of allowing him pure, undiluted happiness. The FAYZ made a habit of stomping on anything that looked even a little bit like happiness. And this level of happiness was surely tempting retaliation. From this high up the fall could be a long, long one. ~ Michael Grant

Sleeping' is being 'awake' in a world you want to be in. ~ Chandan Sharma

Sleep is over rated, then again so is being awake. ~ Dov Davidoff

The deep secret of the brain is that not only the spinal cord but the entire central nervous system works this way: internally generated activity is modulated by sensory input. In this view, the difference between being awake and being asleep is merely that the data coming in from the eyes anchors the perception. Asleep vision (dreaming) is perception that is not tied down to anything in the real world; waking perception is something like dreaming with a little more commitment to what´s in front of you. Other examples of unanchored perception are found in prisoners in pitch-park solitary confinement, or in people in sensory deprivation chambers. Both of these situations quickly lead to hallucinations. ~ David Eagleman

What it means to be authentic:
- to be more concerned with truth than opinions
- to be sincere and not pretend
- to be free from hypocrisy: "walk your talk"
- to know who you are and to be that person
- to not fear others seeing your vulnerabilities
- being confident to walk away from situations where you can't be yourself
- being awake to your own feelings
- being free from others' opinions of you
- accepting and loving yourself ~ Sue Fitzmaurice

Stay together, friends.
Don't scatter and sleep.
Our friendship is made
of being awake. ~ Rumi

Buddhism is more a philosophy for living rather than a religion or dogma - it's about being awake, free from illusions and fear, so that compassion and loving kindness permeates all of our relationships. ~ Charlotte Kasl

So much of childhood amounts to being awake in a grown-up's nightmare. Ours happened to be about poverty, which comes with not just psychological dangers but mortal ones, too. ~ Sarah Smarsh

I know the difference between being awake and being asleep when im awake..when im asleep not so much ~ A. Smythe

But finding a voice-let's be clear-is a political act. It defines a moment of presence, of being awake; and it involves not only self-understanding, but the ability to transmit that selfunderstanding to others ... To experience yourself as "voiceless" is a definition of depression, subjugation, and being counted out. ~ Mary Rose O'Reilley

It's like being awake for the first time. And it should be terrifying to feel everything, but it's not. Because he knows if it's too much."
"I only know the truth." He tugged down his zipper. "There's no such thing as too much, not really. There's only never enough. ~ Kit Rocha

I've always thought sleep was a wonderful invention. Not that being awake isn't nice too, of course. But when I get up in the morning, I think, boy, only fourteen more hours and I can be back to sleep again ... And I never dream, because it distracts my mind from pure sleeping ... ~ Anne Tyler

Between waking and being awake there is a moment full of doubt and dream, when you struggle to remember what the place and when the time and whether you really are.
A peevish moment of wonderment as to where the real world lies. ~ Keri Hulme

I don't personally believe in an arrived state of enlightenment. I feel that being human is a constant practice of return. We have moments of clarity, and then we're confused. We have incredibly sensitive periods of being awake, and then we're numb. Being human is a very universal and a very personal practice of learning how to return when we can't get access to what we know. ~ Mark Nepo

He had always thought that death was black nothingness, but he had not counted on being awake for it. ~ Kay Kenyon

I also know that Edison believed the moment between being awake and being asleep was a veil, and it was in that moment that we were most connected to our higher selves. ~ Jodi Picoult

Some days just being awake is too much input. ~ Tina J. Richardson

With a room of his own, a room at the top, he could proffer a temporary refuge to some lovely, fatigued, world-weary, sophisticated, black-turtlenecked, heavily-eyelinered girl he might lure up the stairs into his newspaper-strewn boudoir and onto his Indian-bedspreaded bed with the promise of artistic talk about the craft of writing, and the throes and torments of creation, and the need for integrity, and the temptations of selling out, and the nobility of resisting such temptations, and so forth. A promise offered with a hint of self-mockery in case such a girl might think he was pompous and cocksure and full of himself. Which he was, because at that age you have to be that way in order to crawl out of bed in the morning and sustain your faith in your own illusory potential for the next twelve hours of being awake. ~ Margaret Atwood

I would lean forward and trace my hands down your arms and curve my neck into yours and let you turn into me and rest there for a while and when you were ready, i'd kiss you once and lift myself away, sit back on your bed and wait for you there, just so we could lie there, and you could hold me and i could hold you. And it would be so peaceful. Like the feeling of sleep, but being awake in it together. ~ John Green

Simplicity is a sign of being awake. ~ Sir Kristian Goldmund Aumann

Magnificent"

When will this inner night – the universe – end
And I – my soul – have my day?
When will I wake up from being awake?
I don't know. The sun shines on high
And cannot be looked at.
The stars coldly blink
And cannot be counted.
The heart beats aloofly
And cannot be heard.
When will this drama without theater
– Or this theater without drama – end
So that I can go home?
Where? How? When?
O cat staring at me with eyes of life, Who lurks in your depths?
It's Him! It's him!
Like Joshua he'll order the sun to stop, and I'll wake up,
And it will be day.
Smile, my soul, in your slumber!
Smile, my soul: it will be day! ~ Fernando Pessoa

Doing philosophy is only a threefold or double kind of waking
being awake
consciousness. ~ Novalis

i stay awake so i dont dream ,just to wake up and realise my dreams will not come true ,but being awake i am also aware of this! i can only hope for the etearnal void which is death! the only thing which is certain and you can not choose if it happens or not... but is the only definate answer ~ Jonathan Pugh

There comes a time for healing
no matter how broken you are right now;
no matter how heavy your heart is right now.
There comes a time when you will go outside
and let the sun shine on your face
and let the wind touch your hair
and you will not be tired by just simply being awake.
There comes a time when you will be happy to be alive again
and that day you will appreciate your own being
because now you know the other side.
Now you know the opposite.
Now you know what it's like to not be sure if you really are; who
you really are;
if you simply are, anymore.
And that day
will be the beginning of everything. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

How can you even think about being awake in the world, let alone caring about someone?"
"Because they may be gone, but I'm not. I honor their memories by living, not by becoming the walking dead. ~ Anne Calhoun

It's all a matter of paying attention, being awake in the present moment, and not expecting a huge payoff. The magic in this world seems to work in whispers and small kindnesses. ~ Charles De Lint

I do my best thinking at night when everyone else is sleeping. No interruptions. No noise. I like the feeling of being awake when no one else is. ~ Jennifer Niven

I cannot stand being awake, the pain is too much. ~ Spike Milligan

Margaret was not dreaming nor was she quite asleep, although the moon looking at her face believed she was. She was experiencing the thing insomniacs dread-- not being awake but the ticky-tacky thoughts that fill in the space where sleep ought to be. Rags and swatches; draincloths and crumpled paper napkins. Old griefs and embarrassments; jealousies and offense. Just common ignoble scraps not deep enough for dreaming and not light enough to dismiss. ~ Toni Morrison

If you live in Birmingham, then being awake is not necessarily a desirable state. ~ Tony Wilson

I hate being awake at three in the morning. It is the godforsaken heart of darkness when the body runs slow, and the brain runs slower, and all you want to do is sleep. But I had promises to keep, and miles to go before I could sleep. Or at least a couple of miracles to perform before I could go to bed. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

Because waking I often observe the absurdity of dreams, but never dream of the absurdities of my waking thoughts, I am well satisfied that being awake, I know I dream not; though when I dream, I think myself awake. ~ Thomas Hobbes

Meditation is the only thing that ever surprised me in my life. ~ Robert Black

What I try to capture as a writer is the feeling of being alive, of being awake. ~ Jenny Offill

I have got so low that I have asked to be hospitalized and for deep narcosis (sleep). I cannot stand being awake. The pain is too much ... Something has happened to me, this vital spark has stopped burning - I go to a dinner table now and I don't say a word, just sit there like a dodo. Normally I am the centre of attention, keeps the conversation going, - so that is depressing in itself. It's like another person taking over, very strange. The most important thing I say is 'good evening' and then I go quiet. ~ Spike Milligan

But what Andy never understood about him was this: he was an optimist. Every month, every week, he chose to open his eyes, to live another day in the world. He did it when he was feeling so awful that sometimes the pain seemed to transport him to another state, one in which everything, even the past that he worked so hard to forget, seemed to fade into a gray watercolor wash. He did it when his memories crowded out all other thoughts, when it took real effort, real concentration, to tether himself to his current life, to keep himself from raging with despair and shame. He did it when he was so exhausted of trying, when being awake and alive demanded such energy that he had to lie in bed thinking of reasons to get up and try again, ~ Hanya Yanagihara

Part of what existence means to me is knowing the difference between what I am now and what I was then. It is being capable of looking after myself intellectually as well as financially. It is being able to tell when I am being wronged and by whom. It means being awake to protect myself and the ones I love. It means being a part of the world community, and being alert to which part it is that I have joined, and knowing how to change to another part if that part does not suit me. To know is to exist: to exist is to be involved, to move about, to see the world with my own eyes. This, at least, the Movement has given me. ~ Alice Walker

And I saw you - I saw you saying that sometimes compassion is understood like being awake, and being unable to react. So every morning, I find myself a different person. I'm always a mystery to myself. If I knew in the first hours of the morning, what I'm going to do, what is going to happen, what attitude or decision should I take? I think my life would be deadly boring because, well, what makes life interesting is the unknown. It is the risks that we take every single moment of our day - of a single day. So, I think that this contradiction should be accepted. Having said that, I mean that learning how to live with our contradictions does not keep us away from the ethic and respecting our neighbor, and learning about tolerance, and learning about compassion. These are two very important words today that were totally forgotten. If you have tolerance and compassion, you can go to the battle, in the metaphoric sense of course, fighting for your dreams without harming anyone. ~ Paulo Coelho

The most effective lie is always the closest to the truth. The closer the better. A dream is not true but is never a lie. There are various approaches for understanding dreams: as evidence of some deeper psychological truth, as alternate realities, as subtle yet surreal mental reprocessings of our daily lives, as experiences equally valid to those had while awake. Due to the acuity of their strangeness, dreams practically call out for interpretation. However, since we don't accurately know what consciousness is, since we don't know precisely what or how we experience being awake, why would we be able to know what happens when we dream? There are also various approaches one might use for understanding a lie. But one aspect generally agreed upon is that to tell the complete truth, and only the complete truth, at all times, is a disaster. There are different ways of being honest. ~ Jacob Wren

I'm a normal human being. I don't have any desire to change my body as a result of having had two kids. That's a good thing, isn't it? ~ Kate Winslet

Being necessary to someone was not unlike being loved. ~ Adam McOmber

It is precisely women's experience of God that this world lacks. A world that does not nurture its weakest, does not know God the birthing mother. A world that does not preserve the planet, does not know God the creator. A world that does not honor the spirit of compassion, does not know God the spirit. God the lawgiver, God the judge, God the omnipotent being have consumed Western spirituality and, in the end, shriveled its heart. ~ Joan D. Chittister

Being born on the earth is the highest honor and greatest privilege. To be alive as human beings gives us the chance to pull off exquisite and Herculean feats of magic that are not possible in nirvana or heaven or any other so-called paradise, higher dimension, or better place,being alive right now is the greatest gift i got from God. ~ Rob Brezsny

You'd have known that without being told if you let yourself think about it. ~ China Mieville

The world would be a vastly better place if people saw their need for God and accepted Him as Savior and Lord. And then lived by His rule of Love being the most important thing. Can you imagine the world if everyone was motivated by love for others? ~ Mary Engelbreit

Does it really take any considerable time or effort just to understand that you depend on enemies and outsiders to define yourself, and that without some opposition you would be lost? To see this is to acquire, almost instantly, the virtue of humor, and humor and self-righteousness are mutually exclusive. Humor is the twinkle in the eye of a just judge, who knows that he is also the felon in the dock. How could he be sitting there in stately judgment, being addressed as "Your Honor" or "Mi Lud," without those poor bastards being dragged before him day after day? It does not undermine his work and his function to recognize this. ~ Alan W. Watts

Then why, Michael asked "are you expecting perfection out of yourself? Do you really think you're that much better than the rest of us? That your powers make you a higher quality of human being? That your knowledge places you on a higher plane than everyone else on this world? ~ Jim Butcher

The instinct is not completely satisfied unless a man's whole being, mental quite as much as physical, enters into the relation. Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of happy mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give; unconsciously, if not consciously, they feel this and the resulting disappointment inclines them towards envy, oppression, and cruelty. ~ Bertrand Russell

I am a creature of the sun. I don't ever mind being in the heat. ~ Kristin Chenoweth

I cannot read a single word of the Hindoos without being elevated. ~ Henry David Thoreau

In a deeply tribal sense, we love our monsters, and I think that is the key to it right there. It is monsters; it is learning about them: it is both thrill and safety. You can think of them without being desperately afraid because they are not going to come into your living room and eat you. That is 'Jaws.' ~ Peter Benchley

Being rule governed, I operate in a world filled with imaginary restraints. ~ Sue Grafton

The present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the ~ Charles Dickens

Just as we possess a potent physical immune system that protects us from threats to our physical well-being, so do we possess a potent psychological immune system that protects us from threats to our psychological well-being. When it comes to maintaining a sense of well-being, each of us is the ultimate spin doctor.21 ~ Timothy D. Wilson

Passion mutates into procedures, into rules and roles. Instead of purpose, we focus on policies. Instead of being free to create, we impose constraints that squeeze the life out of us. ~ Margaret J. Wheatley

Every day I've got to be thankful that I am alive, and you never know - the cliche is, I guess, you could get hit by a bus tomorrow, so you'd better be at peace with whatever you got going at the moment. ~ Joseph Gordon-Levitt

A noble person is mindful and thankful for the favors he receives from others. ~ Gautama Buddha

I think there is a global commonality of understanding coming into being. And it is not necessarily fostered by institutions. ~ Terence McKenna

Because I was more often happy for other people, I got to spend more time being happy. And as I saw more light in everybody else, I seemed to have more myself. (250) ~ Victoria Moran

Being alive requires of us a relationsip with the mysterious, life-long experience of letting go. ~ Molly Fumia

There was such a thing as women's work and it consisted chiefly, Hilary sometimes thought, in being able to stand constant interruption and keep your temper ... ~ May Sarton

Being 15, I feel like people want me to go down the Justin Bieber, Cody Simpson sort of genre. ~ Shawn Mendes

For Feric Jaggar is essentially a monster: a narcissistic psychopath with paranoid obsessions. His total self-assurance and certainty is based on a total lack of introspective self-knowledge. In a sense, such a human being would be all surface and no interior. He would be able to manipulate the surface of social reality by projecting his own pathologies upon it, but he would never be able to share in the inner communion of interpersonal relationships. Such a creature could give a nation the iron leadership and sense of certainty to face a mortal crisis, but at what cost? Led by the likes of a Feric Jaggar, we might gain the world at the cost of our souls. No, ~ Norman Spinrad

There was talk of the Centaur being moved into the elephant cages to make room for a banjo-picking Minotaur. Surrendering his meager furnishings to a musical half man half bull was all bull. ~ Don Roff

sufferings and loveliness were imagined, not incarnate in a specific body. But as I got to know them, I started to see more clearly how the people who came to the pantry were like me: messed up, often prickly or difficult, yearning for friendship. I saw how they were hungry, the way I was. And then, I had a glimpse of them being like Jesus again: as God, made flesh and blood. ~ Sara Miles

I think that being on the road and doing more and more stand-up has allowed me to figure out ... like, I don't think I'll ever be Bill Hicks, but I think I'm figuring out what my opinion is on things. ~ Nick Kroll

I'm proud to be Archie's son. Being a quarterback, I had my mentor and hero living in the same house. ~ Peyton Manning

I think even though he [Nelson Mandela] was feted and praised as he was, he always was at pains to say, I'm a human being. ~ Kumi Naidoo

The great thing about what we do at DTS, all the studios, but especially DTS, because we're talking about our film, is we swing for the fences. So that being said, we're out to tell the very best story we can with the highest quality that we're able to do. ~ Klay Hall

And getting dressed we talk about what else there might be to do, but being together solves most of it, in fact, solves all of it ~ Charles Bukowski