Jacques Lacan Quotes

I'm not always what I think I am, but I am what I think.

It is wrong to say: I think. One ought to say: I am thought. I is someone else.

I am not what I think. I am thinking what I think.

Your life is a reflection of how you think

Man is not what he thinks he is, but what he thinks, he is.

I am the thought you are now thinking.

I am. I am, I exist, I think, therefore I am; I am because I think, why do I think? I don't want to think any more, I am because I think that I don't want to be, I think that I . . . because . . . ugh!

There is thought, and then there is thinking about thoughts, and they don't feel the same.

The human dilemma is that which arises out of a man's capacity to experience himself as both subject and object at the same time.

Obviously the idea of being human is a very human idea.

The thought is not something that observes an inner event, but, rather it is this inner event itself. We do not reflect on something, but, rather, something thinks itself in us.

It seems to be the special peculiarity of human beings that they reflect: they think about thinking and know that they know. This, like other feedback systems, may lead to vicious circles and confusions if improperly managed, but self-awareness makes human experience resonant. It imparts that simultaneous "echo" to all that we think and feel as the box of a violin reverberates with the sound of the strings. It gives depth and volume to what would otherwise be shallow and flat.

My thought is me: that's why I can't stop. I exist because I think… and I can't stop myself from thinking. At this very moment - it's frightful - if I exist, it is because I am horrified at existing. I am the one who pulls myself from the nothingness to which I aspire.

It's very hard to look in the mirror. We all know this. It's much easier to have illusions about yourself. And in particular, when you think, well, I'm going to believe what I like, but I'll say what the powerful want, you do that over time, and you believe what you say.

We are one of only three species on our planet that can claim to be self-aware, yet self-delusion may be a more significant characteristic of our kind.

Every one of us is the sum total of his own thoughts

A long time ago, Descartes sad, “I think, therefore I am.” But if you are not thinking, what?

What is the relationship between awareness and thinking? Awareness is the space in which thoughts exist when that space has become conscious of itself.

No man can enjoy happiness without thinking that he enjoys it.

Consciousness has forced us into the paradoxical position of striving to be unself-conscious of what we are - hunks of spoiling flesh on disintegrating bones.

You are now, and you do become, what you think about.

If we are in silence - in absolute silence with no thoughts - for 10 minutes, it's only a thought that tells us we were silent for 10 minutes. Our only proof is a thought.

How we think shows through in how we act. Attitudes are mirrors of the mind. They reflect thinking.

Our thoughts are certainly part of us; they come from us, but we are not our thoughts. Have you ever woken up in the morning and said to yourself, 'I am not going to think today; I am too tired'? No, of course not. Just as breathing happens and is constant, thoughts happen, and they are also constant.