We see with the eyes, but we see with the brain as well. And seeing with the brain is often called imagination. Oliver Sacks More Quotes by Oliver Sacks More Quotes From Oliver Sacks Music is part of being human. Oliver Sacks being-human music-is musical The past which is not recoverable in any other way is embedded, as if in amber, in the music, and people can regain a sense of identity. Oliver Sacks identity people past Waking consciousness is dreaming – but dreaming constrained by external reality Oliver Sacks waking dream reality And so was Luria, whose words now came back to me: ‘A man does not consist of memory alone. He has feeling, will, sensibility, moral being ... It is here ... you may touch him, and see a profound change.’ Memory, mental activity, mind alone, could not hold him; but moral attention and action could hold him completely. Oliver Sacks men memories profound If a man with a dog sits quietly enjoying music and smiling, his dog might sit down beside him and smile, too. But who knows whether the dog is having a comparable experience or whether the dog is simply happy that his master is happy. Oliver Sacks simply-happy dog men We have five senses in which we glory and which we recognize and celebrate, senses that constitute the sensible world for us. But there are other senses - secret senses, sixth senses, if you will - equally vital, but unrecognized, and unlauded ... unconscious, automatic. Oliver Sacks touching feelings hands Music has a bonding power, it's primal social cement Oliver Sacks cement bonding social Elements and birthdays have been intertwined for me since boyhood, when I learned about atomic numbers. Oliver Sacks boyhood elements numbers I cannot pretend i am not without fear. Oliver Sacks Very young children love and demand stories, and can understand complex matters presented as stories, when their powers of comprehending general concepts, paradigms, are almost nonexistent. Oliver Sacks demand stories children Memory is dialogic and arises not only from direct experience but from the intercourse of many minds. Oliver Sacks arise mind memories Music evokes emotion and emotion can bring it's memory. Oliver Sacks evoke emotion memories If we have youth, beauty, blessed gifts, strength, if we find fame, fortune, favor, fulfillment, it is easy to be nice, to turn a warm heart to the world. Oliver Sacks nice blessed heart My impression is that a sense of rhythm, which has no analog in language, is unique and that its correlation with movement is unique to human beings. Why else would children start to dance when they're two or three? Chimpanzees don't dance. Oliver Sacks unique two children I was fascinated that one could have such perceptual changes, and also that they went with a certain feeling of significance, an almost numinous feeling. I'm strongly atheist by disposition, but nonetheless when this happened, I couldn't help thinking, 'That must be what the hand of God is like.' Oliver Sacks marijuana weed atheist I think there is no culture in which music is not very important and central. That's why I think of us as a sort of musical species. Oliver Sacks musical important thinking But the saddest difference between them was that Zazetsky, as Luria said, 'fought to regain his lost faculties with the indomitable tenacity of the damned,' whereas Dr P. was not fighting, did not know what was lost. But who was more tragic, or who was more damned -- the man who knew it, or the man who did not? Oliver Sacks differences fighting men I feel a sudden clear focus and perspective. There is no time for anything inessential. Oliver Sacks clear perspective focus We have, each of us, a life story, whose continuity, whose sense, is our lives. Oliver Sacks existence stories life Music originally had a social function. You were in church, in a concert hall, a marching band; you were dancing. I'm concerned that music could be too separated from its roots and just become a pleasure-giving experience, like a drug. Oliver Sacks dancing roots giving
