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Existence Quotes

Browse 6829 quotes about Existence.

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Existence Quotes

“Fishes do not roar; they cannot express any sound of suffering; and therefore the angler chooses to think they do not suffer, more than it is convenient for him to fancy. Now it is a poor sport that depends for its existence on the want of a voice in the sufferer, and of imagination in the sportsman.”

ThinkingWantSufferingSportsSoundVoiceImaginationPoorExistenceDependsFishesFancyConvenientSufferersSportsmanAnglers
Book:Leigh Hunt's London Journal
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“No joy for which thy hungering heart has panted, No hope it cherishes through waiting years, But if thou dost deserve it, shall be granted For with each passionate wish the blessing nears. Tune up the fine, strong instrument of thy being To chord with thy dear hope, and do not tire. When both in key and rhythm are agreeing, Lo! thou shalt kiss the lips of thy desire. The thing thou cravest so waits in the distance, Wrapt in the silences, unseen and dumb: Essential to thy soul and thy existence-- Live worthy of it--call, and it shall come.”

IfsYearsHeartSoulJoyDesireHopeStrongWishWaitingExistenceSilenceKeysFineBlessingKissingEssentialsDeserveInstrumentsDistanceLipsDearPassionateWorthyRhythmGrantedDumbTunesCherishUnseenTireChordsNo HopeTune Up
Book:Complete Poetical Works of Ella Wheeler Wilcox (Delphi Classics)
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“Nature has not implanted any power in man that was not meant to be exercised at times, though too often our powers have been abused. The privilege, inborn and inalienable, that every man has of dying himself, and inflicting death upon another, was not given to us without a purpose. These are the last resources of an insulted and unendurable existence.”

MenHas BeensLastsPurposeGivenExistenceDyingResourcesPrivilegeEvery ManMeant To BeInsultedUnendurableWere Not Meant To Be
Book:White-jacket: or, The world in a man-of-war
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“War is the sure result of the existence of armed men. That country which maintains a large standing army will sooner or later have a war. The man who prides himself on fisticuffs is going, some day, to meet a man who considers himself the better man, and they will test the issue.”

MenWarCountryResultsExistenceIssuesHe ManPrideStandingTestsArmySooner Or LaterBetter Man
Book:Selected Writings of Elbert Hubbard ...
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“And I, who timidly hate life, fear death with fascination. I fear this nothingness that could be something else, and I fear it as nothing and as something else simultaneously, as if gross horror and non-existence could coincide there, as if my coffin could entrap the eternal breathing of a bodily soul, as if immortality could be tormented by confinement. The idea of hell, which only a satanic soul could have invented seems to me to have derived from this sort of confusion - a mixture of two different fears that contradict and contaminate each other.”

IfsTwoIdeasDifferentSoulSeemsHateExistenceHellHorrorEternalConfusionBreathingImmortalityNothingnessGrossMixturesFascinationFear Of DeathCoffinsSatanicConfinementNon ExistenceHate Life
Author:Fernando Pessoa
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“Nowadays when a poet with one privately printed book can have his next three years taken care of by a Guggenheim fellowship, a Kenyon Review fellowship, and the Prix de Rome, it is hard to remember what chances the poet took in that small-town world, how precariously hand-to-mouth his existence was. And yet in one way the old days were better; [Vachel] Lindsay after a while, by luck and skill, got far more readers than any poet could get today.”

WorldWayYearsBookHardHandsCareTodayRememberThreeNextChanceExistenceTakenPoetReaderSkillsMouthsTownsLuckOne WayReviewsRomeThree YearsSmall TownFellowshipPrintedOld DaysLuck And SkillPrinted Books
Author:Randall Jarrell
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“Further strengthenings of the self-centered instinct for survival recruit even greater numbers of people into some sort of ring of fellowship (church or gender, red state or blue) by populating the terra incognita outside the ring with enough barbarians to verify the existence of a civilization within--to define the preferred stock by what, as all good people agree, it decidedly is not.”

PeopleSelfStatesEnoughChurchNumbersExistenceGreaterCivilizationSurvivalRedAgreeBlueInstinctGenderRingsGood PeopleFellowshipSelf CenteredBarbariansStrengtheningRecruitVerifyPreferred Stock
Author:Lewis H. Lapham
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“His [Turgot's] first important literary and scholastic effort was a treatise On the Existence of God. Few fragments of it remain, but we are helped to understand him when we learn that he asserted, and to the end of his life maintained, his belief in an Almighty Creator and Upholder of the Universe. It did, indeed, at a later period suit the purposes of his enemies, exasperated by his tolerant spirit and his reforming plans, to proclaim him an atheist; but that sort of charge has been the commonest of missiles against troublesome thinkers in all times.”

FirstsHas BeensImportantEndsSpiritPurposeUniverseBeliefEffortExistenceEnemyPlansPeriodsAtheistCreatorSuitsAll TimeThinkerAlmightyFragmentsMissilesTroublesomeExistence Of GodScholastics
Author:Andrew Dickson White
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“I am well aware of the fact that the human race has known about the existence of a universal energy related to life for many ages. However, the basic task of natural science consisted of making this energy usable. This is the sole difference between my work and all preceding knowledge.”

HumansWellsFactsAgeEnergyNaturalDifferencesRaceExistenceKnownTasksUniversalHuman RaceRelatedSoleNatural ScienceUniversal Energy
Book:Where's the Truth?: Letters and Journals, 1948-1957
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“Psychic disturbances are the consequences of the sexual chaos of society. For thousands of years, this chaos has had the function of psychically subjecting man to the prevailing conditions of existence, of internalizing the external mechanization of life. It has served to bring about the psychic anchoring of a mechanized and authoritarian civilization by making man incapable of functioning independently.”

MenYearsExistenceConditionsCivilizationConsequenceFunctionChaosIncapablePsychicsPrevailingDisturbanceMechanizationInternalizing
Author:Wilhelm Reich
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“The unknown ... became for our primitive forefathers a terrible and omnipotent source of boons and calamities visited upon mankind for cryptic and wholly extra-terrestrial reasons, and thus clearly belonging to spheres of existence whereof we know nothing and wherein we have no part.”

KnowsReasonExistenceMankindSourceTerribleExtrasBelongingSpheresPrimitiveCalamityForefathersOmnipotentBoonCryptic
Book:The Classic Horror Stories
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“It is the night-black Massachusetts legendry which packs the really macabre "kick". Here is material for a really profound study in group-neuroticism; for certainly, no one can deny the existence of a profoundly morbid streak in the Puritan imagination.”

NightBlackImaginationExistenceStudyGroupsMaterialsProfoundDenyKicksPacksStreaksPuritanMorbidMassachusettsMacabre
Book:Against Religion: The Atheist Writings of H.P. Lovecraft
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“When the last days were upon me, and the ugly trifles of existence began to drive me to madness like the small drops of water torturers let fall ceaselessly upon one spot of their victim's body, I loved the irradiate refuge of sleep. In my dreams I found a little of the beauty I had vainly sought in life, and wandered through old gardens and enchanted woods.”

LittlesDreamBodyLastsFallFoundWaterSleepExistenceGardenMadnessVictimUglyWoodsSpotsRefugeTriflesLast DayEnchantedDrop Of Water
Book:H. P. LOVECRAFT äóñ Ultimate Collection: 120+ Works ALL in One Volume: Complete Novellas & Short Stories, Juvenilia, Poetry, Essays & Collaborations: The Call of Cthulhu, The Shadow Out of Time, At the Mountains of Madness, The Dunwich Horror, Dagon, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, The Outsider, The Whisperer in Darkness, The Cats of Ultharäó_
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“Hitherto without being; hidden away in the womb of eternity; possessed neither of thought nor feeling; remote from the range of human ken -- the Man bursts, in some unknown manner, the bars of non-existence, and announces with a cry the beginning of his brief life. In the night of non-existence there bursts forth also a little candle, lit by an unseen hand. Mark well its flame: for it is the life of that Man.”

MenHumansWellsLittlesFeelingsHandsNightExistenceCryHe ManEternityMarkBarsRangeFlamesCandlePossessedUnseenLitWombNon ExistenceBrief Life
Author:Leonid Andreyev
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“As we educate a child -- removing out of its path those obstacles over which we ourselves, in early days, have stumbled, and strengthening its mind with the aid of our own matured experience -- we, as it were, construct a new and better replica of ourselves, and thus enable the race to move slowly, but surely, forward towards the ultimate goal of existence -- towards perfection.”

MindChildrenMovingGoalRaceExistencePathPerfectionUltimateObstaclesAidsEducateConstructsStrengtheningUltimate GoalMaturedMoving OutReplicaSlowly But Surely
Author:Leonid Andreyev
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“I am interested in the creativity of the criminal attitude because I recognize in it the existence of a special condition of crazy creativity. A creativity without morals fired only by the energy of freedom and the rejection of all codes and laws. For freedom rejects the dictated roles of the law and of the imposed order and for this reason is isolated.”

ReasonLawOrderEnergyExistenceAttitudeMoralRolesCreativityCrazySpecialConditionsCriminalsCodeRejectionRejectsIsolated
Author:Joseph Beuys
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“I describe it ( the new aesthetics) 'radically': I say aesthetics = human being. That is a radical formula. I set the idea of aesthetics directly in the context of human existence, and then I have the whole problem in the hand, them I have not a special problem, I have a "holography" (reacting on a former suggestion of the public as a slight joke, fh) I don't know exactly what a holography is.. (1973”

KnowsHumansIdeasWholeProblemHandsHuman BeingsExistenceSpecialJokesFormerRadicalFormulasSuggestionsAestheticsHuman ExistenceReacting
Author:Joseph Beuys
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“Man is naturally self-centered and he is inclined to regard expediency as the supreme standard for what is right and wrong. However, we must not convert an inclination into an axiom that just as man's perceptions cannot operate outside time and space, so his motivations cannot operate outside expediency; that man can never transcend his own self. The most fatal trap into which thinking may fall is the equation of existence and expediency.”

ThinkingMenMaySelfMotivationFallSpaceExistencePerceptionStandardsRegardSupremeTrapsEquationsTime And SpaceInclinationSelf CenteredAxiomsExpediency
Author:Abraham Joshua Heschel
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“I think that the tendency for most people is to fall back on a comic interpretation of things because things are so sad, so terrible. If you didn't laugh you'd kill yourself. But the truth of the matter is that existence in general is very very tragic, very very sad, very brutal and very unhappy.”

PeopleIfsThinkingMatterFallExistenceLaughingTerribleLaughterUnhappyTendenciesComicTragicInterpretationBrutalFall BackVery SadSo SadKilling Yourself
Author:Woody Allen
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“Shut not thy purse-strings always against painted distress. Act a charity sometimes. When a poor creature (outwardly and visibly such) comes before thee, do not stay to inquire whether the "seven small children," in whose name he implores thy assistance, have a veritable existence. Rake not into the bowels of unwelcome truth, to save a halfpenny. It is good to believe him.”

BelieveChildrenSometimesNamesPoorExistenceCreaturesCharitySevenTheeStringsDistressAssistancePursesSmall ChildUnwelcomeBowelsRakes
Book:The Essays of Elia
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“In a word, the Holy Scripture is the highest and best of books, abounding in comfort under all afflictions and trials. It teaches us to see, to feel, to grasp, and to comprehend faith, hope, and charity, far otherwise than mere human reason can; and while evil oppresses us, it teaches how these virtues throw light upon the darkness, and how, after this poor, miserable existence of ours on earth, there is another and an eternal life.”

FeelsHumansBookReasonLightEarthEvilPoorExistenceTeachDarknessVirtueHolyComfortEternalHighestMereCharityScriptureTrialsMiserableAfflictionEternal LifeHoly ScripturesHuman ReasonFaith HopeFaith Hope And Charity
Book:The Table Talk Or Familiar Discourse of Martin Luther
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“No other technique for the conduct of life attaches the individual so firmly to reality as laying emphasis on work; for his work at least gives him a secure place in a portion of reality, in the human community. The possibility it offers of displacing a large amount of libidinal components, whether narcissistic, aggressive or even erotic, on to professional work and on to the human relations connected with it lends it a value by no means second to what it enjoys as something indispensable to the preservation and justification of existence in society.”

GivingHumansMeanRealityValuesIndividualEnjoyCommunityWorkExistencePossibilityAmountOffersRelationConnectedTechniqueSecureAggressivePortionsJustificationIndispensablePreservationEmphasisComponentsEroticNarcissisticHuman RelationsProfessional Work
Book:The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud
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“Orientation in time, space, and status are the essentials of social existence, and the Balinese, although they make very strong spirits for ceremonial occasions, with a few startling exceptions resist alcohol, because if one drinks one loses one's orientation. Orientation is felt as a protection rather than as a strait jacket and its loss provokes extreme anxiety.”

IfsSpiritStrongSocialFeltLosesLossSpaceExistenceDrinkEssentialsAnxietyExtremesProtectionAlcoholOccasionsExceptionVery StrongProvokingJacketsOrientationStrong SpiritBalinese
Book:Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis
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“The first step in the direction of a world rule of law is the recognition that peace no longer is an unobtainable ideal but a necessary condition of continued human existence. But to take even this step we must return to a calm and responsible frame of mind in which we can face the long patient tasks ahead.”

WorldMindFirstsHumansLongFacesLawExistenceStepsConditionsReturnIdealsTasksResponsiblePatientCalmRecognitionFirst StepsRule Of LawHuman ExistenceFrame Of Mind
Author:Margaret Mead
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