---
title: "I knew, and it was an illumination - one of those things one has alwa… — Doris Lessing Quote #39 | QuotesBy.net"
description: "I knew, and it was an illumination - one of those things one has always known, but never understood before - that all sanity depends on this: that it… — a quote by Doris Lessing."
image: "https://quotesby.net/wp-content/themes/quotesby-editorial/assets/og-default.png"
---

> # I knew, and it was an illumination - one of those things one has always known, but never understood before - that all sanity depends on this: that it should be a delight to feel the roughness of a carpet under smooth soles, a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a delight to stand upright, knowing the bones are moving easily under flesh. If this goes, then the conviction of life goes too. But I could feel none of this. ... I knew I was moving into a new dimension, further from sanity than I had ever been.

[Doris Lessing](https://quotesby.net/Doris-Lessing)\#39

[Life](https://quotesby.net/Doris-Lessing/life/)[Mental health](https://quotesby.net/topics/mental-health/)[Sanity](https://quotesby.net/topics/sanity/)

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## About this quote

What does it mean?Sanity is rooted in sensory connection to life; losing that feeling means losing conviction in life.In plain termsFeeling physical sensations keeps you sane and connected to life.What can you take from it?Stay connected to physical reality to maintain sanity.

### Where it applies

- therapy
- mindfulness
- personal crisis

### Putting it to work

- practice sensory awareness
- ground yourself physically

### Questions to consider

- How connected do you feel to your body?
- What sensations ground you?

### Another view

Some mental states affect sensory perception differently.

## More from Doris Lessing

1. > There was a kind of shifting of the balances of my brain, of the way I had been thinking, the same kind of realignment as when, a few days before, words like d…

[Permalink to quote \#38](https://quotesby.net/Doris-Lessing/38/ "Permalink to quote 38")
2. > You want me to begin a novel with The two women were alone in the London flat?

[Permalink to quote \#40](https://quotesby.net/Doris-Lessing/40/ "Permalink to quote 40")
3. > It isn't only the terror everywhere, and the fear of being conscious of it, that freezes people. It's more than that. People know they are in a society dead or…

[Permalink to quote \#37](https://quotesby.net/Doris-Lessing/37/ "Permalink to quote 37")

## Related quotes

1. > Hysteria has no place in the mind of the sane or the free.

[Derek R. Audette](https://quotesby.net/Derek-R.-Audette)[Derek R. Audette quote \#1](https://quotesby.net/Derek-R.-Audette/1/ "Permalink to quote 1")
2. > I wish I wouldn't exist at all.

[Theodor Morell](https://quotesby.net/Theodor-Morell)[Theodor Morell quote \#2](https://quotesby.net/Theodor-Morell/2/ "Permalink to quote 2")
3. > Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our one duty is to furnish it well.

[Peter Ustinov](https://quotesby.net/Peter-Ustinov)[Peter Ustinov quote \#4](https://quotesby.net/Peter-Ustinov/4/ "Permalink to quote 4")

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