The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred million to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face? We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
A wise man will keep his Suspicions muzzled, but he will keep them awake.
Man is so intelligent that he feels impelled to invent theories to account for what happens in the world. Unfortunately, he is not quite intelligent enough, in most cases, to find correct explanations. So that when he acts on his theories, he behaves very often like a lunatic.
The patient typically finds himself impelled by some deep, inner conviction that something is true, or right, or virtuous: a conviction that doesn't seem to owe anything to evidence or reason, but which, nevertheless, he feels as totally compelling and convincing. We doctors refer to such a belief as 'faith'.
Painting and photography keep the creative channel open, and for an actor, it's to keep alive, it's to keep awake, it's to keep watching, it's to keep feeling, it's to keep enjoying, to keep that sensuality of feeling alive.
What does it mean that I am in this endless universe, thinking that I'm a man sitting under the stars on the terrace of the earth, but actually empty and awake throughout the emptiness and awakedness of everything? It means that I'm empty and awake, that I know I'm empty and awake, and that there's no difference between me and anything else.
To be awake is to be completely alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake.
A good idea will keep you awake during the morning, but a great idea will keep you awake during the night.
Nothing keeps me awake at night. I keep other people awake at night.
What distinguishes Cambridge from Oxford, broadly speaking, is that nobody who has been to Cambridge feels impelled to write about it.
I enjoy changing; I think it's more fun to try something different than to just do what you did last time. As an artist, you just want to keep creating, keep finding a place that really inspires you that feels fresh and new, and keep it exciting.
Idea of holding each other’s hands at the Women’s March—it feels like we are being invited to do that every day. So many of us are feeling attacked, whether it’s a woman’s right to choose or headstones in a Jewish cemetery, immigrants being deported or banned. So many of us feel the need to protect and defend our democracy. And march toward the dream of being “We the people.” So that’s exciting, scary, and frustrating. We’re awake. We are awake more than ever before, and we have to stay awake.
Every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.
Well, it starts with being willing to feel what we are going through. It starts with being willing to have a compassionate relationship with the parts of ourselves that we feel are not worthy of existing on the planet. If we are willing through meditation to be mindful not only of what feels comfortable, but also of what pain feels like, if we even aspire to stay awake and open to what we're feeling, to recognize and acknowledge it as best we can in each moment, then something begins to change.
The man who feels like he's a woman trapped in a man's body, when he goes into the ladies room, it's the other women whose privacy it seems to me as being violated by having this man walk in... regardless of how he feels.
The common man is impelled and controlled by interests; the superior, by ideas.