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Existence Quotes

Browse 6829 quotes about Existence.

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Existence Quotes

“The offence is what is improperly called the death of an infant, who has ceased to be, before knowing what existence is, a result of a nature not to give the slightest inquietude to the most timid imagination; and which can cause no regrets but to the very person who, through a sentiment of shame and pity, has refused to prolong a life begun under the auspices of misery.”

GivingPersonsCausesImaginationResultsExistenceKnowingRegretShameMiseryPitySentimentsInfantNo RegretsOffence
Book:Theory of Legislation
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“Before games are played in common, no rules in the proper sense can come into existence. Regularities and ritualized schemas are already there, but these rites, being the work of the individual, cannot call forth that submission to something superior to the self which characterizes the appearance of any rule.”

SelfGamesIndividualCommonExistenceAppearanceSuperiorsSubmissionRiteRegularitySchemas
Book:The Moral Judgement of the Child
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“Mixture of assimilation to earlier schemas and adaptation to the actual conditions of the situation is what defines motor intelligence. But and this is where rules come into existence as soon as a balance is established between adaptation and assimilation, the course of conduct adopted becomes crystallized and ritualized. New schemas are even established which the child looks for and retains with care, as though they were obligatory or charged with efficacy.”

LooksChildrenCareCoursesExistenceSituationConditionsBalanceAdoptedAdaptationMixturesMotorAssimilationEfficacySchemas
Author:Jean Piaget
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“The advantage of pure, and the disadvantage of impure air are experienced each time we breathe, and all who understand the causes of disease know that an impure atmosphere is most unfavourable to the enjoyment of health, and an efficient cause to shorten human existence within the natural life of man. It is therefore most desirable that decisive measures should be devised and generally adopted to ensure to all a pure atmosphere, in which to live during their lives.”

KnowsMenShouldHumansCausesNaturalExistenceAirPureDiseaseAdvantageBreatheAtmosphereEnjoymentEfficientDesirableAdoptedDisadvantagesHuman ExistenceNatural Life
Author:Robert Owen
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“When you ignore your belly, you become homeless. You spend your life trying to erase your own existence. Apologizing for yourself. Feeling like a ghost. Eating to take up space, eating to give yourself the feeling that you have weight here, you belong here, you are allowed to be yourself -- but never quite believing it because you don't sense yourself directly.”

GivingTryingBelieveFeelingsSpaceExistenceEatingWeightGhostBeing YourselfApologizingHomelessBellyNever QuitErase
Author:Geneen Roth
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“The preceding criticism justifies the following definition of the entire human: human existence as the life of "unmotivated" celebration, celebration in all meaning of the word: laughter, dancing, orgy, the rejection of subordination, and sacrifice that scornfully puts aside any consideration of ends, property, and morality.”

HumansEndsExistenceSacrificeMoralityLaughterCriticismDancingPropertyDefinitionsFollowingRejectionConsiderationJustifyCelebrationHuman ExistenceSubordinationUnmotivated
Author:Georges Bataille
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“God is Infinite and His Shadow is also infinite. The Shadow of God is the Infinite Space that accommodates the infinite Gross Sphere which, with its occurrences of millions of universes, within and without the ranges of men's knowledge, is the Creation that issued from the Point of Finiteness in the infinite Existence that is God.”

MenUniverseSpaceExistenceMillionsCreationShadowInfiniteRangeSpheresGrossAccommodateInfinite Space
Book:The Advancing Stream of Life: Its Mystery, Meaning & Purpose
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“The word 'abstract' comes from the light tower of the philosophers. One of their spotlights that they have particularly focused on 'Art'. [Abstraction was] not so much what you could paint but rather what you could not paint. You could not paint a house or a tree or a mountain. It was then that subject matter came into existence as something you ought not have.”

ArtMatterLightHouseExistenceTreeSubjectsOughtMountainPaintPhilosopherAbstractTowersAbstractionSubject MatterSpotlight
Author:Willem de Kooning
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“Life is there ahead of you and either one tests oneself in its challenges or huddles in the valleys of a dreamless day-to-day existence whose only purpose is the preservation of a illusory security and safety. The latter is what the vast majority of people choose to do, fearing the adventure into the known.”

PeopleLifeLife IsPurposeChallengesExistenceKnownSecurityAdventureTestsSafetyMajorityOneselfLatterValleysDay To DayPreservationIllusoryRules For Radicals
Book:Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals
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“It seems significant that according to quantum physics the indestructibility of energy on one hand which expresses its timeless existence and the appearance of energy in space and time on the other hand correspond to two contradictory (complementary) aspects of reality. In fact, both are always present, but in individual cases the one or the other may be more pronounced.”

MayTwoFactsHandsRealitySeemsIndividualEnergySpaceExistenceCasesAspectAppearancePhysicsSignificantQuantumTimelessTime And SpaceContradictoryQuantum PhysicsComplementary
Book:Atom and Archetype: The Pauli/Jung Letters, 1932-1958
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“Although I have no objection to accepting the existence of relatively constant psychic contents that survive personal ego, it must always be born in mind that we have no way of knowing what these contents are actually like "as such." All we can observe is their effect on other living people, whose spiritual level and whose personal unconscious crucially influence the way these contents actually manifest themselves.”

PeopleWayMindSpiritualBornLevelsExistenceAcceptingKnowingInfluenceEffectsEgoConstantUnconsciousManifestPsychicsObjections
Author:Wolfgang Pauli
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“The Mutakallemim... apply the term non-existence only to absolute non-existence, and not to absence of properties. A property and the absence of that property are considered by them as two opposites, they treat, e.g. , blindness and sight, death and life, in the same way as heat and cold. Therefore they say, without any qualification, non-existence does not require any agent, an agent is required when something is produced.”

WayDoeTwoTermExistenceColdOppositesTreatsSightAbsolutesPropertyAbsenceAgentsHeatLife And DeathBlindnessQualificationsNon ExistenceTwo OppositesHeat And Cold
Book:Guide for the perplexed
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“You will see the mercy of God toward His creatures, how He has provided that which is required, in proper proportions, and treated all individual beings of the same species with perfect equality. ...for it is an act of great and perfect goodness that He gave us existence; and the creation of the controlling faculty in animals is a proof of His mercy towards them, as has been shown by us.”

Has BeensIndividualPerfectAnimalExistenceCreationCreaturesGoodnessMercySpeciesProofTreatedProportionFacultyMercy Of God
Author:Maimonides
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“I find it expressed in various passages of Scripture that the fact that God knows things while in a state of possibility, when their existence belongs to the future, does not change the nature of the possible in any way; that nature remains unchanged; and the knowledge of the realisation of one of several possibilities does not yet effect that realisation. This is likewise one of the fundamental principles of the Law of Moses concerning which there is no doubt nor any dispute.”

KnowsWayDoeStatesFactsLawExistencePrinciplesDoubtEffectsPossibilityFundamentalsRemainsVariousScriptureNo DoubtPassagesDisputesGod KnowsMosesRealisationFundamental Principles
Author:Maimonides
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“Know that the difficulties which lead to confusion in the question what is the purpose of the Universe or of any of its parts, arise from two causes: first, man has an erroneous idea of himself, and believes that the whole world exists only for his sake; secondly, he is ignorant both about the nature of the sublunary world, and about the Creator's intention to give existence to all beings whose existence is possible, because existence is undoubtedly good.”

KnowsMenWorldGivingFirstsBelieveTwoIdeasWholePurposeUniverseCausesExistenceDifficultyIntentionSakeCreatorAriseWhole WorldIgnorantConfusion
Book:The Guide for the Perplexed
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“It is not unreasonable to assume that the works of God, their existence and preceding non-existence, are the result of His wisdom, but we are unable to understand many of the ways of His Wisdom in His works. On this principle the whole Law of Moses is based; it begins with this principle: "And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good" (Gen. i. 31); and it ends with this principle: "The Rock, perfect is His work" (Deut. xxxii. 4). Note it.”

WayMadeEndsWholeLawPerfectResultsExistencePrinciplesSawsRocksAssumingNotesVery GoodMosesUnreasonableNon Existence
Book:The Guide for the Perplexed
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“Is it not remarkable that the common repute which we all give to attorneys in the general is exactly opposite to that which every man gives to his own attorney in particular? Whom does anybody trust so implicitly as he trusts his own attorney? And yet is it not the case that the body of attorneys is supposed to be the most roguish body in existence?”

MenGivingDoeBodyCommonExistenceCasesParticularOppositesEvery ManSupposed To BeRemarkableAttorney
Book:Miss Mackenzie: Trollope's Works
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“My husband is not American. He was born in Brazil, where he grew up under a filthy, corrupt dictatorship. In his twenties, he moved to Europe, where he lived for a while under various socialist democracies. He spent a few years on a kibbutz in Israel, living out a utopian experiment in communal existence.”

YearsBornExistenceDemocracyGrewHusbandGrew UpEuropeTwentiesMovedVariousIsraelExperimentsMy HusbandDictatorshipSocialistBrazilUtopianFilthy
Author:Elizabeth Gilbert
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“Daily life is a comprimised blend of posturing for the sake of role-playing and of varying degrees of self-revelation. Under stressful conditions even the "true" self cannot be precisely defined, as Erving Goffman observes. ...Little wonder that the identity crisis is a major source of modern neuroticism, and that the urban middle class aches for a return to a simpler existence.”

LittlesSelfLife IsExistenceWonderClassRolesModernMiddleConditionsIdentitySourceReturnDegreesMajorsCrisisSakeDefinedRevelationsMiddle ClassDaily LifeUrbanTrue SelfAcheStressfulIdentity CrisisRole PlayingSelf Revelation
Author:E. O. Wilson
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“Every man feels that perception gives him an invincible belief of the existence of that which he perceives; and that this belief is not the effect of reasoning, but the immediate consequence of perception. When philosophers have wearied themselves and their readers with their speculations upon this subject, they can neither strengthen this belief, nor weaken it; nor can they shew how it is produced. It puts the philosopher and the peasant upon a level; and neither of them can give any other reason for believing his senses, than that he finds it impossible for him to do otherwise.”

MenGivingFeelsBelieveReasonBeliefLevelsExistenceImpossibleSubjectsEffectsReaderPerceptionConsequencePhilosopherEvery ManSensesPerceiveReasoningSpeculationPeasantsInvincible
Book:The Works of Thomas Reid, D. D.: Now Fully Collected, with Selections from His Unpublished Letters
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“All civilization in a sense exists only in the mind. Gunpowder, textile arts, machinery, laws, telephones are not themselves transmitted from man to man or from generation to generation, at least not permanently. It is the perception, the knowledge and understanding of them, their ideas in the Platonic sense, that are passed along. Everything social can have existence only through mentality.”

MenMindArtIdeasLawSocialUnderstandingExistenceGenerationsCivilizationPerceptionMentalityTelephonesMachineryPlatonicGunpowderTextilesKnowledge And Understanding
Author:Alfred L. Kroeber
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