“O, what a world of unseen visions and heard silences, this insubstantial country of the mind! What ineffable essences, these touchless rememberings and unshowable reveries! And the privacy of it all! A secret theater of speechless monologue and prevenient counsel, an invisible mansion of all moods, musings, and mysteries, an infinite resort of disappointments and discoveries. A whole kingdom where each of us reigns reclusively alone, questioning what we will, commanding what we can. A hidden hermitage where we may study out the troubled book of what we have done and yet may do. An introcosm that is more myself than anything I can find in a mirror. This consciousness that is myself of selves, that is everything, and yet is nothing at all - what is it?”
― The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
― The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
“It is manifest that behind the so-called curtain which is supposed to conceal the inner world, there is nothing to be seen unless we go behind it ourselves, as much in order that we may see, as that there may be something behind there which can be seen.”
― Phenomenology of Spirit
― Phenomenology of Spirit
“A knife is neither true nor false, but anyone impaled on its blade is in error.”
― Mount Analogue
― Mount Analogue
“A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that's just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it's a joke.”
― Either/Or, Part I
― Either/Or, Part I
“There is nothing in the understanding which has not come from the senses, except the understanding itself, or the one who understands.”
― Philosophical Essays
― Philosophical Essays
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