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Existence Quotes

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Existence Quotes

“In proportion to the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable to others. There is a greater fullness of life about his own existence, and when there is more life in the units there is more in the mass which is composed of them.”

PersonsIndividualExistenceGreaterDevelopmentMassIndividualityValuableProportionUnitsFullnessFullness Of Life
Book:On Liberty: Representative Government ; The Subjection of Women : Three Essays
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“Perhaps that's what I feel, an outside and an inside and me in the middle, perhaps that's what I am, the thing that divides the world in two, on the one side the outside, on the other the inside, that can be as thin as foil, I'm neither one side nor the other, I'm in the middle, I'm the partition, I've two surfaces and no thickness, perhaps that's what I feel, myself vibrating, I'm the tympanum, on the one hand the mind, on the other the world, I don't belong to either.”

WorldFeelsMindTwoSelfHandsSidesExistenceMiddleSurfaceDividesPartitionFoilsThickness
Book:The collected works of Samuel Beckett
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“Justice begins with the recognition of the necessity of sharing. The oldest law is that which regulates it, and this is still themost important law today and, as such, has remained the basic concern of all movements which have at heart the community of human activities and of human existence in general.”

HumansHeartStillsImportantTodayLawCommunityJusticeExistenceMovementActivityConcernRecognitionHuman ExistenceHuman Activity
Book:Crowds and power: Masse und Macht]
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“It is a human circumstance that when we are born we have not yet come into existence. We are lured into our special human existence by a mothering presence that gratifies our innate urges to be suckled, held, rocked, caressed. But that same gratifying presence puts limits on desire and rations satisfaction. In this sense the mother is also the first lawgiver.”

FirstsHumansMotherDesireBornExistenceSpecialCircumstancesLimitsSatisfactionUrgesInnateHuman ExistenceMotheringRations
Book:Adolescence: The Farewell to Childhood
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“The adolescent frequently supposes that she is breaking out of the confines of her mundane, schoolgirl existence simply in order to break rules and defy authority. . . . She rids herself of the "oughts" and "musts" that convert every minor infraction into a sin of omission or commission. It certainly does not occur to her or to her family that by questioning the moral standards she erected as a child she is taking the first steps in her journey toward a firmer, more reasonable, less harsh, more ethical form of conscience.”

FirstsChildrenDoeFormOrderSinExistenceMoralStepsBreakJourneyAuthorityStandardsConscienceReasonableEthicalFirst StepsQuestioningMinorsAdolescenceHarshMundaneOmission
Author:Louise J. Kaplan
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“The most significant change wrought by adolescence is the taming of the ideals by which a person measures himself. . . . Love of oneself becomes love of the species. Conscience is pointed to the future, whispering permission to reach beyond the safety net of our ordinary and finite human existence.”

HumansPersonsExistenceSelf LoveFutureOrdinaryConscienceIdealsSafetySpeciesOneselfSignificantPermissionAdolescenceFiniteHuman ExistenceWhisperingSafety NetTamingSignificant Change
Author:Louise J. Kaplan
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“We belong to that order of mammals, the primates, distinguished by its propensity for repeated single litters, intense parental care, long life-spans, late sexual maturity, and a complex and extensive social existence... Our protracted biological and psychological helplessness, which extends well into the third year of life, intensifies the bond between infant and parents, making possible a sense of generational continuity. In contrast to other primates these bonds are not obliterated after sexual maturity.”

YearsWellsLongCareOrderSocialParentExistenceLateThirdsComplexesIntensePsychologicalMaturityContrastInfantLong LifeDistinguishedContinuityHelplessnessParentalBondingPropensityMammalsPrimatesLife SpanYears Of Life
Book:Adolescence: The Farewell to Childhood
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“How old the world is! I walk between two eternities.... What is my fleeting existence in comparison with that decaying rock, that valley digging its channel ever deeper, that forest that is tottering and those great masses above my head about to fall? I see the marble of tombs crumbling into dust; and yet I don't want to die!”

WorldWantTwoDiesFallWalksExistenceRocksMassEternityDeeperForestsDustComparisonMortalityFleetingTombsMarbleDiggingWanting To DieCrumbling
Author:Denis Diderot
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“We made love. How pedestrian the words look-trite, worn, practically featureless with use-but how can one better describe that which happens when it happens? That creation? That magic blending? I might say we became figures in a mesmerized dance before the rocking talisman of the moon, starting slow, so slow... a pair of feathers drifting through clear liquid substance of sky... gradually accelerating, faster and faster and finally into photon existence of pure light... as my whole straining body burst like fluid electricity into hers.”

LooksMadeWholeUseBodyLightMightHappensSexExistenceClearMagicSkyFiguresCreationPureMoonStartingFasterSubstancePairsWornElectricityFeathersFluidLiquidDriftingPedestriansTalismansPhotonsMesmerized
Author:Ken Kesey
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“This perceiving, active being is what I call mind, spirit, soul, or myself. By which words I do not denote any one of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from them, wherein they exist, or, which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived; for the existence of an idea consists in being perceived.”

MindIdeasSoulSpiritExistencePerceptionActive
Book:Principles of Human Knowledge: Human Understanding
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“Did men but consider that the sun, moon, and stars, and every other object of the senses, are only so many sensations in their minds, which have no other existence but barely being perceived, doubtless they would never fall down and worship their own ideas; but rather address their homage to that eternal invisible Mind which produces and sustains all things.”

MenMindIdeasGodFallStarsExistenceSunObjectsProduceMoonEternalWorshipAll ThingsDown AndSensesInvisibleAddressesSensationsIdealismFalling DownHomageMoon And StarsSun MoonSun Moon And Stars
Book:Principles of Human Knowledge: Human Understanding
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“Nothing is demonstrable, unless the contrary implies a contradiction. Nothing, that is distinctly conceivable, implies a contradiction. Whatever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent. There is no being, therefore, whose non-existence implies a contradiction. Consequently there is no being, whose existence is demonstrable.”

DeathExistenceContraryContradictionAfterlifeBeing ThereNon Existence
Book:Dialogues sur la religion naturelle
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“Reasoning from the common course of nature, and without supposing any new interposition of the Supreme Cause, which ought always to be excluded from philosophy; what is incorruptible must also be ingenerable. The soul, therefore, if immortal, existed before our birth: And if the former existence noways concerned us, neither will the latter.”

IfsSoulPhilosophyCoursesCausesCommonExistenceOughtBirthConcernedSupremeFormerImmortalityReasoningLatterImmortalExcludedSupposing
Book:The Philosophical Works of David Hume ... Containing Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Essays on the Immortality of the Soul, Suicide ... &c. A New Edition
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“When I think of God, when I think of him as existent, and when I believe him to be existent, my idea of him neither increases nordiminishes. But as it is certain there is a great difference betwixt the simple conception of the existence of an object, and the belief of it, and as this difference lies not in the parts or composition of the idea which we conceive; it follows, that it must lie in the manner in which we conceive it.”

ThinkingBelieveIdeasGodLyingCertainBeliefI BelieveDifferencesSimpleExistenceObjectsIncreaseConceptionCompositionBelief In God
Book:A Treatise of Human Nature
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“There surely is a being who presides over the universe; and who, with infinite wisdom and power, has reduced the jarring elementsinto just order and proportion. Let speculative reasoners dispute, how far this beneficent being extends his care, and whether he prolongs our existence beyond the grave, in order to bestow on virtue its just reward, and render it fully triumphant.”

GodCareOrderUniverseExistenceVirtueInfiniteRewardsGravesProportionDisputesTriumphant
Book:Selected essays
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“[The sceptic] must acknowledge, if he will acknowledge any thing, that all human life must perish, were his principles to prevail.All discourse, all action would immediately cease, and men remain in a total lethargy, till the necessities of nature, unsatisfied, put an end to their miserable existence.”

IfsMenHumansEndsActionExistencePrinciplesCeaseMiserableHuman LifeAcknowledgeSkepticismDiscourseUnsatisfiedLethargySceptic
Book:An inquiry concerning human understanding. A dissertation on the passions. An inquiry concerning the principles of morals. The natural history of religion
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“I love moving water, I love ships, I love the sharp definition, the concentrated humanity, the sublime solitude of life at sea. The dangers of it only make present to us the peril inherent in all existence, which the stupid, ignorant, un-travelled land-worm never discovers; and the art of it, so mathematical, so exact, so rewarding to intelligence, appeals to courage and clears the mind of superstition, while filling it with humility and true religion.”

MindArtMovingHumanityWaterExistenceSeaLandStupidDangerHumilitySolitudeDefinitionsIgnorantShipsMathematicalAppealsSuperstitionsInherentSublimeWormsFillingPerilTrue ReligionMoving Water
Author:George Santayana
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“As nature requires whirlwinds and cyclones to release its excessive force in a violent revolt against its own existence, so the spirit requires a demonic human being from time to time whose excessive strength rebels against the community of thought and the monotony of moralityonly by looking at those beyond its limits does humanity come to know its own utmost limits.”

KnowsHumansDoeSpiritHumanityForceCommunityHuman BeingsExistenceProgressLimitsViolentReleaseRebelRevoltMonotonyDemonicCyclonesExcessive Force
Author:Stefan Zweig
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“Since the Greeks, Western man has believed that Being, all Being, is intelligible, that there is a reason for everythingand that the cosmos is, finally, intelligible. The Oriental, on the other hand, has accepted his existence within a universe that would appear to be meaningless, to the rational Western mind, and has lived with this meaninglessness. Hence the artistic form that seems natural to the Oriental is one that is just as formless or formal, as irrational, as life itself.”

MenMindReasonHandsSeemsFormUniverseNaturalExistenceWesternAcceptedRationalArtisticGreekCosmosMeaninglessIrrationalFormalMeaninglessness
Author:William Barrett
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“Homosexuality was invented by a straight world dealing with its own bisexuality. But finding this difficult, and preferring not toadmit it, it invented a pariah state, a leper colony for the incorrigible whose very existence, when tolerated openly, was admonition to all. We queers keep everyone straight as whores keep matrons virtuous.”

WorldStatesDifficultExistenceFindingsVirtuousHomosexualityHomophobiaColonyBisexualityLeperDealing With ItAdmonitionPariahsIncorrigible
Book:Flying
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“Whoever considers morality the main objective of human existence, seems to me like a person who defines the purpose of a clock asnot going wrong. The first objective for a clock, is, however, that it does run; not going wrong is an additional regulative function. If not a watch's greatest accomplishment were not going wrong, unwound watches might be the best.”

IfsFirstsHumansPersonsDoeSeemsMightRunningPurposeExistenceWatchesMoralityFunctionPrioritiesObjectivesClockAccomplishmentBeing The BestHuman ExistenceGreatest Accomplishment
Author:Franz Grillparzer
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“Some 'separation' zealots would expunge any vestige of religious observance in public schools. Many of the same anti-religious fanatics would like to wipe out of existence all church-related schools, by regulation or taxation, so that universal ignorance of the life of spirit should prevail.”

ShouldSchoolChristianSpiritChurchReligiousExistenceIgnoranceUniversalSeparationRelatedRegulationTaxationPublic SchoolWipeFanaticsObservanceAnti ReligiousZealotReligious Fanatics
Book:The Assault on religion: commentaries on the decline of religious liberty
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“New York was a new and strange world. Vast, impersonal, merciless.... Always before I had felt like a person, an individual, hopeful that I could mold my life according to some desire of my own. But here in New York I was ignorant, insignificant, unimportant--one in millions whose destiny concerned no one. New York did not even know of my existence. Nor did it care.”

KnowsWorldPersonsCareDesireIndividualFeltMy OwnExistenceDestinyMillionsNew YorkStrangeConcernedIgnorantHopefulInsignificantMoldUnimportantStrange World
Book:Daughter of Earth
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“Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God”

ReasonFactsReligionReligiousExistenceOpinionAtheismAtheistSeatsAgnosticBoldnessChurch And StateSeparation Of Church And StateOur Founding FathersReligious BeliefHomageFreethinkerFounding Fathers ChristianGod ExistsUs Founding FathersFounding Fathers ReligionSeparation Between Church And StateExistence Of GodReligion GodFounding Fathers Anti ReligionFounding Fathers AtheistDeismChristianity From Founding FathersChristian AtheistReligion ChristianReligion And GovernmentAnti ChristianTribunalsGod DelusionFaith ReligionBlindfoldedFunny AtheistGreatest AtheistQuestioning BeliefsBlindfoldsOpinions And Beliefs
Book:The Essential Jefferson
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“How is it possible on the one hand, for example, to behave as if nothing on earth were more important than literature, and on the other fail to see that wherever one looks, people are struggling against hunger and will necessarily consider that the most important thing is what they earn at the end of the month? Because this is where he (the writer) is confronted with a new paradox: while all he wanted was to write for those who are hungry, he now discovers that it is only those who have plenty to eat who have the leisure to take notice of his existence.”

PeopleIfsWritingLooksImportantEndsHandsWantedEarthLiteratureExistenceStruggleFailingExampleMonthsImportant ThingsHungerHungryPlentyBehaveParadoxLeisure
Author:Stig Dagerman
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“There might have been a hundred or a thousand life-bearing planets, had the course of evolution of the universe been a little different, or there might have been none at all. They would probably add, that, as life and man have been produced, that shows that their production was possible; and therefore, if not now then at some other time, if not here then in some other planet of some other sun, we should be sure to have come into existence; or if not precisely the same as we are, then something a little better or a little worse.”

IfsMenShouldBelieveLittlesHas BeensDifferentMatterShowsBodyMightUniverseCoursesForceExistenceConsciousnessSunPlanetsEvolutionThousandHundredAddProductionsComplexityMight Have BeenMarvellous
Author:Alfred Russel Wallace
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