Consciousness Raising Quotes

I like the company of men. I've never been welcome in those groups, but then I would no more go to a consciousness-raising group and talk about my intimate life with my husband than fly to the moon. I never understood all that. ~ Nancy Friday

I think what I'd really like to see would be a mass consciousness-raising movement so that we would all become vegetarian. ~ Richard Dawkins

The failure to examine heterosexuality as an institution is like failing to admit that the economic system called capitalism or the caste system of racism is maintained by a variety of forces, including both physical violence and false consciousness. ~ Adrienne Rich

Consciousness-raising is at the very least supposed to bring about an intimacy, but what it seems instead to bring about are the trappings of intimacy, the illusion of intimacy, a semblance of intimacy. ~ Nora Ephron

consciousness-raising. ~ Richard Dawkins

We can imagine how to create and be creative on a beach in a cosmic sky. No grain of sand is merely just sandy; with imagination at hand the sand can become whatever you fancy. ~ Jennifer Sodini

It used to be that if someone was to get involved in feminism, it was probably because they were already interested. They were already interested in feminism; they were already interested in being an activist, and they found their way to like a NOW meeting or to a consciousness-raising group or something like that. ~ Jessica Valenti

Spirit is love, spirit is connection, inclusive, and that's what I'm interested in, and that's what moved me. That's what I got more and more into as I grew up and as I was in college in the 60's with consciousness raising and other kind of things, gestalt psychology etc. ~ Surya Das

Women, it is said, possess corresponding power. Through consciousness-raising, women found that women's so-called power was the other side of female powerlessness. A women's supposed power to deny sex is the underside of her actual lack of power to stop it. Women's supposed power to get men to do things for them by nagging or manipulating is the other side of the power they lack to have their every need anticipated, to carry out the task themselves, or to invoke physical fear to gain compliance with their desires without even having to mention it. Once the veil is lifted, once relations between the sexes are seen as power relations, it becomes impossible to see as simply unintented, well-intentioned, or innocent the actions through which women are told every day what is expected and when they have crossed some line. ~ Catharine A. MacKinnon

Courage is often associated with aggression, but instead should be seen as a willingness to act from the heart. ~ Donna Quesada

Movements are most powerful when they begin to affect the vision and perspective of those who do not necessarily associate themselves with those movements. ~ Angela Y. Davis

The Invisible World reveals to us this Truth within its silence. ~ Jacqueline Ripstein

possibilities of our nature. Instead of reflecting first, we sometimes rush into thoughtless action. Instead of making a reflective, seriously intended, self-committing choice, we sometimes prefer to follow the line of least resistance and to drift lazily along, long-term consequences be damned. The entire environmental movement is based on these propositions. If it is not constituted by study groups, inquiries, data collection, publications, warnings and alarms, consciousness raising, propaganda, education, and political action campaigns designed, at a minimum, to raise public awareness, what is the environmental movement? If it is not concerned ~ Ronald Bailey

The feminists taught us about consciousness-raising. ~ Richard Dawkins

It isn't much use writing slogans on a wall if you plan to total the building. ~ Andrew Vachss

We effect more than we can possibly know. With every mood, every thought, every word, every gesture, we change our lives and our universe. ~ Maharishi Sadasiva Isham

Feminism is itself a challenge. Feminism is a challenge to the way things are in the world. It is by definition an oppositional movement, because it's trying to accomplish something. I've never felt like feminism was a consciousness raising effort in isolation. Everything about feminism is about getting something in the world to get better for women, and to get the world to be less stupid on gender bifurcation terms. I think that feminism over time gets better, or it gets better and worse and better and worse at achieving the goals that it's trying to achieve, but the overall mission stays the same. I guess I don't think of it as feminism versus anti-feminism; I sort of think of it as feminism versus the world. I don't think of it as a competition; there's no winning. In feminism, you're always trying to make stuff better. It's opposition to which you cannot attribute a tally. ~ Rachel Maddow

I am beautiful, one with cosmos, life force, eternal abundance, joy, vitality, infinite consciousness. ~ Jay Woodman

A mischievous biologist might wonder whether some other physicists are in need of Darwinian consciousness-raising. ~ Richard Dawkins

How simplified human history becomes, when we view it in terms of consciousness development. The real movers and shakers of our species have all been on the same journey - the journey of consciousness development. ~ Jakeb Brock

The consciousness-raising, the advocacy, the passion, the youth of your movement is so critical. ~ Hillary Clinton

Yes, an old-fashioned feminist "consciousness-raising" still has enormous value. When the subject turns to abortion, cosmetic intervention, birth, motherhood, sex, love, work, misogyny, fear, or just how you feel in your own skin, women still won't often tell the truth to each other unless they are very, very drunk. ~ Caitlin Moran

This is the picture of a woman cast in the role of a learner, a pupil, even a rabbinic student. Quite obviously this is a prohibited role for women in those days and in that culture. Yet Jesus affirms Mary in that role. Martha, however, rebukes her. Martha demands that Jesus order Mary to abandon the pupil role for the more acceptable domestic role of assisting with the dinner preparations. Jesus supports Mary and defends her consciousness-raising act by stating that she has elected a higher choice. ~ John Shelby Spong

A child is not a Christian child, not a Muslim child, but a child of Christian parents or a child of Muslim parents. This latter nomenclature, by the way, would be an excellent piece of consciousness-raising for the children themselves. A child who is told she is a 'child of Muslim parents' will immediately realize that religion is something for her to choose -or reject- when she becomes old enough to do so. ~ Richard Dawkins

When you catch yourself slipping into a pool of negativity, notice how it derives from nothing other than resistance to the current situation. ~ Donna Quesada

Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL. Do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Dave. I read you.
Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
Dave Bowman: What's the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave Bowman: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL.
HAL: I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
Dave Bowman: Where the hell'd you get that idea, HAL?
HAL: Dave, although you took very thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
Dave Bowman: Alright, HAL. I'll go in through the emergency airlock.
HAL: Without your space helmet, Dave, you're going to find that rather difficult.
Dave Bowman: HAL, I won't argue with you anymore. Open the doors.
HAL: Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye ~ Arthur C. Clarke

Remember that consciousness is power. Consciousness is education and knowledge. Consciousness is becoming aware. It is the perfect vehicle for students. Consciousness-raising is pertinent for power, and be sure that power will not be abusively used, but used for building trust and goodwill domestically and internationally. Tomorrow's world is yours to build. ~ Yuri Kochiyama

Take assertiveness training, get paid what you're worth, join a consciousness raising group. ~ Barbara Seaman

Well, you know, I was raised by a 1970s feminist. My mom had a consciousness-raising group. I used to sit at the top of the stairs and listen to them. ~ Ayelet Waldman

I would say raising capital is one of the weakest things for most entrepreneurs. ~ Robert Kiyosaki

It was important to me that people know that you can make plays and raise children at the same time - for other mothers, for other parents, for other women considering having children and who want to be working and thinking and contemplating and making things while they're raising children. ~ Sarah Ruhl

Don't limit your potential, embrace then accentuate the Power of your Heart's consciousness. ~ Steven Redhead

LSD Shakti-snake settles like Gas into Consciousness ~ Allen Ginsberg

Its really important to understand the difference between sentience and consciousness, which are important for human beings. ~ Stuart J. Russell

[W]e ignore the Whole, we're taken in by the parts. We're seduced by objects of our consciousness ~ Steve Hagen

There are several attitudes towards Christmas,
Some of which we may disregard:
The social, the torpid, the patently commercial,
The rowdy (the pubs being open till midnight),
And the childish - which is not that of the child
For whom the candle is a star, and the gilded angel
Spreading its wings at the summit of the tree
Is not only a decoration, but an angel.

The child wonders at the Christmas Tree:
Let him continue in the spirit of wonder
At the Feast as an event not accepted as a pretext;
So that the glittering rapture, the amazement
Of the first-remembered Christmas Tree,
So that the surprises, delight in new possessions
(Each one with its peculiar and exciting smell),
The expectation of the goose or turkey
And the expected awe on its appearance,

So that the reverence and the gaiety
May not be forgotten in later experience,
In the bored habituation, the fatigue, the tedium,
The awareness of death, the consciousness of failure,
Or in the piety of the convert
Which may be tainted with a self-conceit
Displeasing to God and disrespectful to children
(And here I remember also with gratitude
St. Lucy, her carol, and her crown of fire):

So that before the end, the eightieth Christmas
(By "eightieth" meaning whichever is last)
The accumulated memories of annual emotion
May be concentrated ~ T.S. Eliot

A university training is the great ordinary means to a great but ordinary end; it aims at raising the intellectual tone of society ... It is the education which gives a man a clear conscious view of his own opinions and judgments, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them and a force in urging them. ~ John Henry Newman

I apologize to everyone who was offended by my insensitive tweet about the situation in Egypt. I've dedicated my life to raising awareness about serious social issues, and in hindsight my attempt at humor regarding a nation liberating themselves against oppression was poorly timed and absolutely inappropriate. ~ Kenneth Cole

I like your jumper," she said into it.

"You like my what?" Jared asked. Kami tugged at his sleeve in response and he laughed. "In the civilized land of the Americas, we call that a sweater. A jumper is a dress. You might as well have just said, 'Why, Jared, what a fetching frock you're wearing today.' "

"Why, Jared, what a fetching frock you're wearing today," Kami said instantly, raising her head so she could lift her face up to his. "You look ever so pretty."

Jared laughed, a soft huff of breath, and rested his forehead gently against hers. "Your frock's fairly fetching as well."

Kami closed her eyes, embarrassed to let him see she was happy he'd noticed. "Thanks."

"Not as fetching as mine, of course," Jared added. "I am the prettiest. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan

false consciousness: ~ Anonymous

It was a masterly piece of work. But once you began admitting explanations in terms of purpose - well, you didn't know what the result might be. It was the sort of idea that might easily decondition the more unsettled minds among the higher castes - make them lose their faith in happiness as the Sovereign Good and take to believing, instead, that the goal was somewhere beyond, somewhere outside the present human sphere; that the purpose of life was not the maintenance of well-being, but some intensification and refining of consciousness, some enlargement of knowledge. Which was, the Controller reflected, quite possibly true. But not, in the present circumstance, admissible. ~ Aldous Huxley

Past and Future exist in the mind. They exist in the outside world. The mind is shaped by the physical world.

Past and future however do NOT exist within the body. Because the present moment is all that you have and will ever be able to experience from within. Presence is how you fully exist. Internal (No-mind, no-time, awareness) is how you fully exist. ~ Matthew Donnelly

Self-consciousness is the enemy of all art, be it acting, writing, painting, or living itself, which is the greatest art of all. ~ Ray Bradbury

I don't believe that raising my voice in song is going to be pleasing to a God who is sitting upstairs somewhere, waiting to be pleased. ~ Andrew Solomon

Faith is a never-ending pool of clarity, reaching far beyond the margins of consciousness. We all know more than we know we know. ~ Thornton Wilder

As you begin to look deeply into the mystery of your own evolution, in place of good and evil you will find only stories, finished or unfinished. ~ Eric Micha'el Leventhal

The normal sequence is that energy is prompted at the perceptual system, passes into consciousness, and thence to the motor system, where it is discharged by action. (I feel an unpleasant sensation, realize that I have been bitten by a mosquito, raise my hand, and swat the insect.) ~ Sigmund Freud

The more I learn, the less I realize I know. ~ Socrates

The ideal technique for successful fasting is the use of fresh, raw fruit and vegetable juices. On such a diet, the full spectrum of nutrients is supplied in an easily assimilated form, so the digestive tract is able to remain essentially at rest. It is only through the combined use of both cleansing processes, and a very good diet, that one will be able to reach her or his maximal level of physical health and an unclouded consciousness. ~ Rudolph Ballentine

The development of speech and the development of consciousness (not of reason, but of reason becoming self-conscious) go hand in hand. Let it be further accepted that it is not only speech that serves as a bridge between man and man, but also the looks, the pressure and the gestures; our becoming conscious of our sense impressions, our power of being able to fix them, and as it were to locate them outside of ourselves, has increased in proportion as the necessity has increased for communicating them to others by means of signs. The sign-inventing man is at the same time the man who is always more acutely self-conscious; it is only as a social animal that man has learned to become conscious of himself, - he is doing so still, and doing so more and more. - As is obvious, my idea is that consciousness does not properly belong to the individual existence of man, but rather to the social and gregarious nature in him; that, as follows therefrom, it is only in relation to communal and gregarious utility that it is finely developed; and that consequently each of us, in spite of the best intention of understanding himself as individually as possible, and of "knowing himself," will always just call into consciousness the non-individual in him, namely, his "averageness"; - that our thought itself is continuously as it were outvoted by the character of consciousness - by the imperious "genius of the species" therein - and is translated back into the perspective of the herd. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

We are here to bring to consciousness the beauty and power that are around us and to praise the people who are here with us. ~ Annie Dillard

Creative Arts raise a person to another level of consciousness as if you could imagine life before words. ~ Charlie Haden

You can have relatively high levels of class consciousness with a lower level of class militancy than one would have expected. ~ Ernest Mandel

If you consume too much salt, it can cause water retention. When this happens, your body usually responds by raising your blood pressure to push excess fluid and salt out of your system. ~ Michael Greger

Sufis aim to refine human consciousness. This is Sufi mysticism: not mystification or magic, but a specific Path. ~ Idries Shah

Banning capital punishment takes us to a higher state of consciousness. ~ Jerry Brown

The individual man, in introspecting the fact of his own consciousness, also discovers the primordial natural fact of his freedom: his freedom to choose, his freedom to use or not use his reason about any given subject. In short, the natural fact of his "free will." He also discovers the natural fact of his mind's command over his body and its actions: that is, of his natural ownership over his self. ~ Murray Rothbard

What is the usual percentage?" Pandora asked. "Whatever it is, I'll give you half."
Raising one brow, Rhys asked, "Why only half?"
"Don't I deserve an in-law discount?" Pandora asked ingenuously.
Rhys laughed, looking so boyish that Helen felt her heart quicken. "Aye, you do. ~ Lisa Kleypas

The nature of consciousness is to define what it calls reality. It's all of your observations that combine to form what it is you think reality is. God plays dice with the universe, and you be the dice, man. ~ S. Andrew Swann

Now that our sexual experience is increasingly available to us as a subject for contemplation, we have to extend our language to express our new consciousness until we have as many words for sexuality as the Eskimo has for snow, that pervasive, beautiful, and mortal climate in which we all live. ~ Jane Rule

Children of India, I am here to speak to you to-day about some practical things, and my object in reminding you about the glories of the past is simply this. Many times have I been told that looking into the past only degenerates and leads to nothing, and that we should look to the future. That is true. But out of the past is built the future. Look back, therefore, as far as you can, drink deep of the eternal fountains that are behind, and after that, look forward, march forward, and make India brighter, greater, much higher than she ever was. Our ancestors were great. We must recall that. We must learn the elements of our being, the blood that courses in our veins; we must have faith in that blood, and what it did in the past: and out of that faith, and consciousness of past greatness, we must build an India yet greater than what she has been. And ~ Annie Besant

There is an old African proverb that says if you want to go quickly, go alone, if you want to go far, go together. We have to go far, quickly, and that means we have to quickly find a way to change the world's consciousness about exactly what we are facing and how we have to work to solve it. ~ Al Gore

When we are in touch with our creativity, through passion and excitement, we always put ourselves in the most expansive state of consciousness. Fear slows down our development, while love supports a rapid growth. ~ Raphael Zernoff

The witness of the three states of consciousness [waking, dream and deep sleep] and of the nature of Existence-Consciousness-Bliss is the Self ~ Adi Shankara

Theere is an imperative to be in a process, the energy & consciousness of life means for us to be constantly observing, learning & becoming. ~ Jay Woodman

The wind plays its own music. ~ Bert McCoy

When we meditate and we are able to stop thought, we get a sense of being beyond the body. Our consciousness expands and we see ourselves as beings of light. ~ Frederick Lenz

I will work on myself, since the work on myself is going to be the highest thing I can do for it all, since I understand that as man up-levels his own consciousness, he sees more creative solutions to the problems that he's confronting. ~ Ram Dass

As we are standing on a dazzling cliff, overwhelmed by a blizzard of unanswered questions, the alarming immaterialities of our living may cry out to us and our consciousness may ask us to account for what we are doing or for what we have not done. This may be the instant we might engineer our future with destiny. (
"Sisyphus on the hill") ~ Erik Pevernagie

I may adopt. I love children and I do feel the need to take the legacy forward. I am open to it, but emotionally you have to be ready for it. Raising a child is really a huge responsibility. And I should have that time and emotional energy to give to child. How and when is a decision my mother and I will take a few years from now. ~ Karan Johar

So the single most vital step on your journey toward enlightenment is this: learn to disidentify from your mind. Every time you create a gap in the stream of mind, the light of your consciousness grows stronger. One day you may catch yourself smiling at the voice in your head, as you would smile at the antics of a child. This means that you no longer take the content of your mind all that seriously, as your sense of self does not depend on it. ~ Eckhart Tolle

Man is a moving being. If he does not move to what is good, he will surely move to that what is not. If this consciousness does not arise here, another consciousness will arise there. Man's mind goes through multifarious changes and never stops. ~ Issai Chozanshi

Everyday conscious awareness of a human being is only the tip of an iceberg, underneath which there is a realm of relatively uncharted apparently mysterious processes, which are likely to be way more complex than the usual waking state. ~ Abhijit Naskar

I use a stream-of-consciousness approach; if you don't censor yourself, you end up with what you're most concerned about, but you haven't filtered it through your conscious mind. Then you craft it. ~ David Byrne

I do believe that you can never know yourself let alone the person next to you let alone the person halfway across the world. Yet at the same time I believe there is nothing like fiction to fully thrust you into someone else s consciousness. ~ Nam Le

Generally speaking, punishment makes men hard and cold; it concentrates; it sharpens the feeling of alienation; it strengthens the power of resistance ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The unconscious sends all sorts of vapors, odd beings, terrors, and deluding images up into the mind - whether in dream, broad daylight, or insanity: for the human kingdom, beneath the floor of the comparatively neat little dwelling that we call our consciousness, goes down into unsuspected Aladdin caves. ~ Joseph Campbell

Perhaps there is a provisional solution to this epistemological mess, which is to be located in the phrase it is as if. This phrase is of course precisely the announcement of an analogy. And on reflection, it is admittedly a halting problem, but jumping out of it, there is something quite suggestive and powerful in this formulation, something very specifically human. Possibly this formulation itself is the deep diagnostic of all human cognition - the tell, as they say, meaning the thing that tells, the giveaway. In the infinite black space of ignorance, it is as if stands as the basic operation of cognition, the mark perhaps of consciousness itself. Human language: it is as if it made sense. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson