Haruki Murakami Quotes

We have the notion that we exist but we have no way to prove it. 'I am' is the closest foundation we can get.

I suppose identity depends on memory. And if my memory is blotted out, then I wonder if I exist - I mean, if I am the same person. Of course, I don't have to solve that problem. It's up to God, if any.

Beyond the walls of intelligence, life is defined

Consciousness is a being the nature of which is to be conscious of the nothingness of its being.

I have no other self than the totality of the things of which I am aware.

But thought's the slave of life, and life time's fool.

We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget.

Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought.

I am me, whatever that means. I am conscious.

Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, " This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in; fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well! It must have been made to have me in it!

Forever I shall be a stranger to myself. In psychology as in logic, there are truths but no truth.

If you knew the immensity of what it means to be human, you would not talk about God or Heaven.

Philosophy, which formerly raised man to feel conscious of himself because he was a thinking being and to say, 'I think therefore I am," now raises him to say ... "I think, therefore I am not," (unless he takes thought into consideration only in that humble region where it is confused with action).

I’ve always felt almost human. I’ve always known that there’s something about me that’s different than other dogs. Sure, I’m stuffed into a dog’s body, but that’s just the shell. It’s what’s inside that’s important. The soul. And my soul is very human.

There are a lot of different ways to talk about mindfulness, but what it really means is awareness.

Cut off as I am, it is inevitable that I should sometimes feel like a shadow walking in a shadowy world. When this happens I ask to be taken to New York City. Always I return home weary but I have the comforting certainty that mankind is real flesh and I myself am not a dream.

The world as pure object is something that is not there. It is not a reality outside us for which we exist....It is a living and self-creating mystery of which I am myself a part, to which I am myself, my own unique door.

Kierkegaard also said that truth is 'subjective'. By this he did not mean it doesn't matter what we think or believe. He meant that the really important truths are personal. Only these truths are 'true for me'.

Time can also be a place.... Everything depends on where you are standing, on where you look or what you hear. The measure of it is found in consciousness itself.

I mean how do you know what you're going to do till you do it? The answer is, you don't. I think I am, but how do I know? I swear it's a stupid question.

I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.

I am the presence standing here at this juncture of Time & Space- who else?

Vigilance in oneself is very important. Vigilance means to be alert to what happens inside, so you can catch an old, collective habit pattern.

The meaning of life is found in openness to being and "being present" in full awareness.

it is in our minds that we live much of our life.