All 50 Uses of

conscious
in
Atlas Shrugged

His voice was cold, with a note of self-conscious virtue.†
Chpt 1.2

self-conscious = nervousness or discomfort felt by someone due to concern about what others will think of them

She found pleasure in the special self-consciousness it gave her.†
Chpt 1.8

They sat in a manner of self-conscious display, as if the enormous cost of their clothes and the enormous care of their grooming should have fused into splendor, but didn't.†
Chpt 2.1 *

Her posture had the lightness and unself-conscious precision of an arrogantly pure self-confidence.†
Chpt 2.6

unself-conscious = not concerned with what others might think of oneself

unconventional spelling: This is more commonly spelled unselfconscious.

There were few people on the platform around him and they seemed to move with self-conscious strain, as if a sense of disaster clung to the rails and to the girders above their heads.†
Chpt 2.9

self-conscious = nervousness or discomfort felt by someone due to concern about what others will think of them

Mr. Thompson sat motionless, with his face held self-consciously stiff.†
Chpt 3.3

self-consciously = with nervousness or discomfort felt by someone due to concern about what others will think of them

She kept her hands in the coat pockets, her posture taut, as if she resented immobility, and unfeminine, as if she were unconscious of her own body and that it was a woman's body.†
Chpt 1.1

unconscious = a state similar to sleep where one is unaware of anything

standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconscious means not and reverses the meaning of conscious. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.

They knocked in an even rhythm, every fourth knock accented, as if stressing a conscious purpose.†
Chpt 1.1

She was so used to them that she did not hear them consciously, but the sound became a sense of peace within her......When she extinguished her cigarette, she knew that she needed another one, but thought that she would give herself a minute, just a few minutes, before she would light it......She had fallen asleep and she awakened with a jolt, knowing that something was wrong, before she knew what it was: the wheels had stopped.†
Chpt 1.1

Her slender body, about to slump from exhaustion, was held erect by the straight line of the shoulders, and the shoulders were held by a conscious effort of will.†
Chpt 1.1

But every inch of its course, every pound of its pressure and the content of every molecule within it, were controlled and made by a conscious intention that had worked upon it for ten years.†
Chpt 1.2

It was a walk of some miles through empty country, but he had felt like doing it, without conscious reason.†
Chpt 1.2

The sight of the running metal was still burned into his mind, filling his consciousness, leaving no room for anything else.†
Chpt 1.2

In unspoken understanding, as if bound by a vow it had never been necessary to take, she and Eddie Willers had given themselves to the railroad from the first conscious days of their childhood.†
Chpt 1.3

It had been a struggle without the relief of violence, without the recognition of finding a conscious enemy, with only a deaf wall to batter, a wall of the most effective soundproofing: indifference, that swallowed blows, chords and screams-a battle of silence, for a man who could give to sounds a greater eloquence than they had ever carried-the silence of obscurity, of loneliness, of the nights when some rare orchestra played one of his works and he looked at the darkness, knowing that his soul went in trembling, widening circles from a radio tower through the air of the city, but there were no receivers tuned to hear it.†
Chpt 1.4

Slowly, taking her time by conscious intention, she sat down and leaned back, looking at him.†
Chpt 1.4

There was no boasting in his manner and consciousness, no thought of comparison.†
Chpt 1.5

She braced her feet to stop the dizziness, she held her head straight and stood facing him in the consciousness of a new power, feeling herself his equal for the first time, looking at him with a mocking smile of triumph.†
Chpt 1.5

When he approached, she smiled innocently, as if unconscious of any contest intended or won.†
Chpt 1.5

unconscious = a state similar to sleep where one is unaware of anything

standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconscious means not and reverses the meaning of conscious. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.

She was conscious of nothing else.†
Chpt 1.5

But when a thin sheet of paper fluttered down to the floor and she bent to pick it up, she was suddenly as intently conscious of that particular moment, of herself and her own movement.†
Chpt 1.5

She had no conscious realization of his purpose, her vague knowledge of it was wiped out, she had no power to believe it clearly, in this moment, to believe it about herself, she knew only that she was afraid-yet what she felt was as if she were crying to him: Don't ask me for it-oh, don't ask me-do it!†
Chpt 1.5

She lay very still, conscious of nothing but a supreme need of caution.†
Chpt 1.5

She knew these were the words, even in the moments when there was nothing left within her but screaming and she wished she could lose the faculty of consciousness so that it would not tell her that what could not be true was true.†
Chpt 1.5

She said in the solemn, merciless tone of a prosecutor, "You did it consciously, cold-bloodedly and with full intention."†
Chpt 1.5 *

He was not conscious of it, he was looking off into some grim distance, but she felt certain that the action was a relief to him, perhaps as a contrast.†
Chpt 1.5

He had cried, "Good God!" leaping to his feet; he had hurried home, rushed up the stairs, started tearing his clothes off and gone through the routine of dressing, conscious only of the need to hurry, not of the purpose.†
Chpt 1.6

He did not speak, because his consciousness was held, not by coherent statements, but by two pictures that seemed to glare at him insistently.†
Chpt 1.6

Francisco shook his head slowly; the conscious deliberation of the movement gave it an air that was almost sadness.†
Chpt 1.6

She was not conscious of it.†
Chpt 1.6

He came to believe the doctrine that this desire was wholly physical, a desire, not of consciousness, but of matter, and he rebelled against the thought that his flesh could be free to choose and that its choice was impervious to the will of his mind.†
Chpt 1.6

It was not in the nature of his consciousness to understand the nature of the things he was hearing.†
Chpt 1.7

For the moment, with an unnatural clarity, with a brutal simplification that made it almost easy, his consciousness contained nothing but one thought: It must not stop me.†
Chpt 1.7

He sat that way for a few moments, conscious of nothing but pain, a screaming pain without content or limit-he sat, not knowing whether it was in his mind or his body, reduced to the terrible ugliness of pain that stopped thought.†
Chpt 1.7

She thought: To find a feeling that would hold, as their sum, as their final expression, the purpose of all the things she loved on earth ....To find a consciousness like her own, who would be the meaning of her world, as she would be of his ....No, not Francisco d'Anconia, not Hank Rearden, not any man she had ever met or admired ....A man who existed only in her knowledge of her capacity for an emotion she had never felt, but would have given her life to experience ....She twisted herself in a slow, faint movement, her breasts pressed to the desk; she felt the longing in her muscles, in the nerves of her body.†
Chpt 1.8

He stood by the engine of the John Galt train, talking to somebody outside the field of her consciousness.†
Chpt 1.8

She was dressed in blue slacks and shirt, she was unconscious of official duties, she had left them to him, the train was now her sole concern, as if she were only a member of its crew.†
Chpt 1.8

unconscious = a state similar to sleep where one is unaware of anything

standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconscious means not and reverses the meaning of conscious. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.

Without conscious intention, people were beginning to stand still.†
Chpt 1.8

She lay back, conscious of nothing but the pleasure it gave her.†
Chpt 1.8

There were people by the bridge, the dark splash of a crowd, but they rolled off the edge of her consciousness.†
Chpt 1.8

The shock became numbness spreading through her body-she felt a tight pressure in her throat and her stomach-she was conscious of nothing but a silent convulsion that made her unable to breathe.†
Chpt 1.8

When he was left alone, Rearden felt a jolt of blinding anger, as it had come to him before, painful, single and sudden like an electric shock-the anger bursting out of the knowledge that one cannot deal with pure evil, with the naked, full-conscious evil that neither has nor seeks justification.†
Chpt 1.10

Wiping out the rest, filling her consciousness, leaving no room for words, no time for wonder, as a glaring answer to the questions she had not begun to ask, stood two pictures: Ellis Wyatt's implacable figure in front of her desk, saying, "It is now in your power to destroy me; I may have to go; but if I go, I'll make sure that I take all the rest of you along with me"and the circling violence of Ellis Wyatt's body when he flung a glass to shatter against the wall.†
Chpt 1.10

The only consciousness the pictures left her was the feeling of the approach of some unthinkable disaster, and the feeling that she had to outrun it.†
Chpt 1.10

When Ferris had gone, Dr. Stadler sat at his desk, his shoulders shrinking together, conscious only of a desperate wish not to be seen by anyone.†
Chpt 2.1

Her eyes were half-closed in the mocking, conscious triumph of being admired, but her mouth was half-open in helpless, begging expectation.†
Chpt 2.1

He stood across the room, looking at her, at her flat stomach drawn in, as her breath was drawn, at the sensitive body of a sensitive consciousness.†
Chpt 2.1

He held the length of her body pressed to his, as if their bodies were two currents rising upward together, each to a single point, each carrying the whole of their consciousness to the meeting of their lips.†
Chpt 2.1

It was like the jolt of returning to consciousness: two words suddenly made everything real to her.†
Chpt 2.2

He walked briskly, in a Morse code pattern of short dashes and brief stops, with a manner of faint irritation, as if conscious of the number of people whom his displeasure might worry.†
Chpt 2.2

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Best Example Sentences
From Other Sources
Grouped by 5 Meanings

Definitions:

(1) (conscious as in: conscious after the operation)
awake (not asleep or in a state similar to sleep where one is unaware of anything)
(2) (conscious as in: a conscious effort to lose weight)
intentional (done on purpose) -- perhaps with significant effort
(3) (conscious as in: environmentally conscious)
aware or concerned about something
(4) (conscious as in: the conscious mind)
mental activity of which one is self-aware
(5) (conscious as in: conscious life on other planets)
capable of thought, self-reflection, and will

Page Numbers by Book Edition

conscious in Atlas Shrugged

conscious
in
Atlas Shrugged