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Existence Quotes

Browse 6829 quotes about Existence.

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Existence Quotes

“If one is the kind of creature I am and wants to do the kind of writing I want to do, an undisturbed bourgeois existence with no distractions seems in order. A single meeting outside the family upsets one's whole inner web, makes one start off on two-days' thinking and weighing, destroys a delicate balance etc. etc. ... I now have enough friends to last me a lifetime and that is enough. I am going to close the doors and hibernate at least for a couple of years. I am frightfully depressed about my work. It seems to me perfectly mediocre.”

IfsThinkingWantWritingYearsKindTwoEnoughWholeSeemsLastsOrderExistenceDoorsCoupleBalanceCreaturesMeetingsLifetimeUpsetEtcWorking ItDistractionDelicateMediocreBourgeoisTwo DaysWeighing
Author:May Sarton
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“The most fascinating women are those that can most enrich the every day moments of existence. In a particular and attaching sense, they are those that can partake our pleasures and our pains in the liveliest and most devoted manner. Beauty is little without this; with it she is triumphant.”

LittlesMomentsPainPleasureExistenceParticularFascinatingDevotedTriumphant
Book:Men, Women, and Books: A Selection of Sketches, Essays, and Critical Memoirs from His Uncollected Prose Writings
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“The disappointed man turns his thoughts toward a state of existence where his wiser desires may be fixed with the certainty of faith; the successful man feels that the objects which he has ardently pursued fail to satisfy the cravings of an immortal spirit; the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness, that he may save his soul alive.”

MenFeelsMaySoulStatesSpiritDesireTurnsExistenceSuccessfulAliveFailingObjectsEternityCertaintyFixedWickedImmortalDisappointedWiserWickednessCravingPursuedSuccessful ManWicked Man
Book:On Sir Francis Burdett's motion for parliamentary reform.-On the conduct of the war.-On the cry of the Whigs for peace, 1810.-Army and navy reforms, 1810.-On the economical reformers, 1811.-On the state of the poor.-The principle of Mr. Malthus's essay on population.-The manufacturing system, 1812.-On the state of the poor.-On the accounts of England by foreign travellers and the state of public opinion, 1816.-On the state of public opinion and the political reformers, 1816.-v.2 A letter to Will
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“The first time I received an award, I was very surprised. I did not know whether to accept it or not. But I came to the conclusion that I should accept awards in the name of the poorest poor, as a form of homage to them. I think that basically, when awards are given to me, the existence of the poor in the world is being recognized.”

ThinkingKnowsWorldShouldFirstsFormNamesGivenPoorExistenceAcceptingPovertyFirst TimeConclusionAwardsPoorestHomage
Author:Mother Teresa
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“Falsehood is fire in stubble; it likewise turns all the light stuff around it into its own substance for a moment, one crackling blazing moment, and then dies; and all its converts are scattered in the wind, without place or evidence of their existence, as viewless as the wind which scatters them.”

MomentsLightDiesTurnsStuffExistenceFireWindEvidenceSubstanceFalsehoodBlazing
Book:The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Poetry, Plays, Literary Essays, Lectures, Autobiography and Letters (Classic Illustrated Edition): The Entire Opus of the English poet, literary critic and philosopher, including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, Christabel, Lyrical Ballads, Conversation Poems and Biographia Literaria
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“Our imagination so magnifies this present existence, by the power of continual reflection on it, and so attenuates eternity, by not thinking of it at all, that we reduce an eternity to nothingness, and expand a mere nothing to an eternity; and this habit is so inveterately rooted in us that all the force of reason cannot induce us to lay it aside.”

ThinkingReasonForceImaginationExistenceHabitReflectionEternityLaysMereRootedNothingness
Book:Thoughts on Religion and Other Subjects
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“As we reach midlife in the middle thirties or early forties, we are not prepared for the idea that time can run out on us, or for the startling truth that if we don't hurry to pursue our own definition of a meaningful existence, life can become a repetition of trivial maintenance duties.”

IfsIdeasRunningAgeExistenceMiddleDutyPreparedDefinitionsMeaningfulPursueFortyRepetitionMiddle AgesMaintenanceMidlife
Book:Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life
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“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. It turns problems into gifts, failures into successes, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. It can turn an existence into a real life, and disconnected situations into important and beneficial lessons. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. Gratitude makes things right.”

ImportantRealEnoughProblemHomeTodayPastOrderTurnsHousePerfectExistenceMistakeSituationVisionEventsAcceptanceTomorrowGratitudeLessonsChaosStrangerReal LifeConfusionClarityDenialMake SenseMealsUnexpectedTimingOur PastBeneficialFullnessDisconnectedFullness Of LifeImportant EventsPerfect TimingMake Things Right
Book:Melody Beattie 4 Title Bundle: Codependent No More and 3 Other Best Sellers by Melody Beattie: A collection of four Melody Beattie best sellers
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“Eating reveals the characteristic grossness of the human race and also the in-built failure of its satisfactions. We arrive eager, we stuff ourselves and we go away depressed and disappointed and probably feeling a bit queasy into the bargain. It's an image of the déçu in human existence. A greedy start and a stupefied finish. Waiters, who are constantly observing this cycle, must be the most disillusioned of men.”

MenHumansFeelingsStuffBitsRaceExistenceEatingBuiltSatisfactionHuman RaceCharacteristicsRestaurantsCyclesGoing AwayDisappointedGreedyObservingBargainsHuman ExistenceWaiterDisillusioned
Book:A Fairly Honourable Defeat
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“Literature is a place for generosity and affection and hunger for equals - not a prizefight ring. We are increased, confirmed in our medium, roused to do our best, by every good writer, every fine achievement. Would we want one good writer or fine book less? The sense of writers being pitted against each other is bred primarily by the workings of the commercial marketplace, and by critics lauding one writer at the expense of another while ignoring the existence of nearly all.”

WantBookLiteratureExistenceFineAchievementCriticsVery GoodHungerAffectionRingsMediumsGenerosityExpensesMarketplaceGood Writers
Book:Silences
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“I had left home (like all Jewish girls) in order to eat pork and take birth control pills. When I first shared an intimate evening with my husband, I was swept away by the passion (so dormant inside myself) of a long and tortured existence. The physical cravings I had tried so hard to deny, finally and ultimately sated ... But enough about the pork.”

FirstsLongHardEnoughHomeOrderGirlPassionLeftExistenceBirthHusbandDenyEveningIntimateMy HusbandCravingPillsBirth ControlPorkDormantSwept AwaySatedBirth Control Pills
Author:Roseanne Barr
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“The soul of the truly benevolent man does not seem to reside much in his own body. Its life, to a great extent, is a mere reflex of the lives of others. It migrates into their bodies, and identifying its existence with their existence, finds its own happiness in increasing and prolonging their pleasures, in extinguishing or solacing their pains.”

MenDoeSoulBodySeemsPainPleasureExistenceMereCharityLives Of OthersBenevolentIdentifyingReflexesMigrateProlonging
Book:Lectures and Annual Reports on Education
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“I know animals more gallant than the African warthog, but none more courageous. He is the peasant of the plains - the drab and dowdy digger in the earth. He is the uncomely but intrepid defender of family, home, and bourgeois convention, and he will fight anything of any size that intrudes upon his smug existence. ... His eyes are small and lightless and capable of but one expression - suspicion. What he does not understand, he suspects, and what he suspects, he fights.”

KnowsDoeHomeEyeEarthFightingAnimalExistenceExpressionCapableSizeHis EyesCourageousSuspectsConventionsSuspicionPeasantsBourgeoisDefendersGallantFamily Home
Book:West with the Night
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“For centuries, the mystics of spirit had existed by running a protection racket - by making life on earth unbearable, then charging you for consolation and relief, by forbidding all the virtues that make existence possible, then riding on the shoulders of your guilt, by declaring production and joy to be sins, then collecting blackmail from the sinners.”

RunningEarthJoySpiritReligionSinExistenceVirtueCenturyGuiltProductionsProtectionShouldersReliefSinnerRidingConsolationUnbearableCollectingDeclaringRacketChargingBlackmail
Book:For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)
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“For one thing, there are many "inventions" that are not patentable. The "inventor" of the supermarket, for example, conferred great benefits on his fellowmen for which he could not charge them. Insofar as the same kind of ability is required for the one kind of invention as for the other, the existence of patents tends to divert activity to patentable inventions.”

KindAbilityExistenceOne ThingExampleActivityBenefitsEconomicsInventionInventorPatentsSupermarkets
Book:Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition
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