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Existence Quotes

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Existence Quotes

“Absurd, irreducible; nothing — not even a profound and secret delirium of nature — could explain it. Obviously I did not know everything, I had not seen the seeds sprout, or the tree grow. But faced with this great wrinkled paw, neither ignorance nor knowledge was important: the world of explanations and reasons is not the world of existence. A circle is not absurd, it is clearly explained by the rotation of a straight segment around one of its extremities. But neither does a circle exist. This root, on the other hand, existed in such a way that I could not explain it.”

KnowsWorldWayDoeImportantReasonHandsGrowsSecretExistenceTreeIgnoranceRootsProfoundSeedsCirclesAbsurdExplanationPawsDeliriumSproutsExtremityNauseaRotation
Author:Jean-Paul Sartre
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“In a world where God does not exist, any reasonable person must see that the propensity toward selfishness should be the most venerated of all human traits. From this it stands to reason that any man, knowing the total expanse of his existence to be finite, who does not devote every moment of his life to acts of pure selfishness, must be seen as nothing more than a fool.”

MenWorldLifeShouldHumansPersonsDoeReasonMomentsExistenceKnowingFoolPureSelfishnessReasonableTraitsFinitePropensityExpanse
Author:Derek R. Audette
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“A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrine and promises but by the refuge it offers from the anxieties, barrenness and meaningless of an individual existence. It cures the poignantly frustrated not by conferring upon them an absolute truth or by remedying the difficulties and abuses which made their lives miserable, but by freeing them from their ineffectual selves and it does this by enfolding and absorbing them into a closely knit and exultant corporate whole.”

DoeMadeSelfWholeIndividualExistenceSocietyMovementPromiseOffersAnxietyMassAbuseDifficultyAbsolutesFollowingDoctrineCuresMiserableCorporateRisingMeaninglessFrustratedRefugeAbsorbingAbsolute TruthTrue Believer
Book:Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
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“A mob is usually a creature of very mysterious existence, particularly in a large city. Where it comes from, or whither it goes, few men can tell. Assembling and dispersing with equal suddenness, it is as difficult to follow to its various sources as the sea itself; nor does the parallel stop here, for the ocean is not more fickle and uncertain, more terrible when roused, more unreasonable or more cruel.”

MenDoeDifficultCitiesExistenceSeaSourceTerribleCreaturesEqualOceanVariousMysteriousUncertainParallelsUnreasonableFickleAssemblingLarge Cities
Book:Charles Dickens's works. Charles Dickens ed. [18 vols. of a 21 vol. set. Wanting A child's history of England; Christmas stories; The mystery of Edwin Drood].
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“One of the weaknesses of much abstract painting is the attempt to substitute the inventions of the intellect for a pristine imaginative conception. The inner life of a human being is a vast and varied realm and does not concern itself alone with stimulating arrangements of color, form and design. The term 'life' as used in art is something not to be held in contempt, for it applies all of its existence, and the province of art is to react to it and not to shun it. Painting will have to deal more fully and less obliquely with life and nature's phenomena before it can again be great.”

HumansDoeArtFormUsedTermHuman BeingsDealsExistenceDesignColorPaintingArt IsWeaknessConcernIntellectInventionRealmsAbstractSubstitutesConceptionContemptArrangementsImaginativeInner LifeProvincesPristineAbstract PaintingTerm Life
Author:Edward Hopper
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“One man watches a river flow by. If he does not wish it to flow, to change ceaselessly in accord with its nature, he will suffer great pain. Another man understands that nature of the river is to change constantly, regardless of his likes and dislikes, and therefore he does not suffer. To know existence as this flow, empty of lasting pleasure, void of self, is to find that which is stable and free of suffering, to find true peace in the world.”

IfsKnowsMenWorldDoeSelfPainSufferingWishPleasureExistenceWatchesFlowRiversEmptyLikesLastingOne ManDislikeVoidStableAnother ManAccordTrue PeaceLikes And Dislikes
Author:Ajahn Chah
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“Art too is just a way of living, and however one lives, one can, without knowing, prepare for it; in everything real one is closer to it, more its neighbor, than in the unreal half-artistic professions, which, while they pretend to be close to art, in practice deny and attack the existence of all art - as, for example, all of journalism does and almost all criticism and three quarters of what is called (and wants to be called) literature.”

WayWantDoeArtRealThreeLiteratureExistenceHalfPracticeKnowingExampleCriticismDenyProfessionNeighborJournalismArtisticQuartersUnrealReal Ones
Book:Letters to a Young Poet
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“Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, of sickness, or captivity, would, without this comfort, be insupportable; nor does it appear that the happiest lot of terrestrial existence can set us above the want of this general blessing; or that life, when the gifts of nature and of fortune are accumulated upon it, would not still be wretched, were it not elevated and delighted by the expectation of some new possession, of some enjoyment yet behind, by which the wish shall at last be satisfied, and the heart filled up to its utmost extent.”

WantHeartDoeStillsLastsWishBehindsExistencePovertyConditionsComfortBlessingExpectationsFilledMiseryFortunePossessionSatisfiedEnjoymentSicknessWretchedDelightedCaptivityFilled UpHeart Filled
Book:The Beauties of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Consisting of Maxims and Observations, Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous : to which are Now Added, Biographical Anecdotes of the Doctor, Selected from the Works of Mrs. Piozzi, His Life, Recently Published by Mr. Boswell, and Other Authentic Testimonies : Also His Will, and the Sermon He Wrote for the Late Doctor Dodd
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“"There is one basis of science," says Descartes, "one test and rule of truth, namely, that whatever is clearly and distinctly conceived is true." A profound psychological mistake. It is true only of formal logic, wherein the mind never quits the sphere of its first assumptions to pass out into the sphere of real existences; no sooner does the mind pass from the internal order to the external order, than the necessity of verifying the strict correspondence between the two becomes absolute. The Ideal Test must be supplemented by the Real Test, to suit the new conditions of the problem.”

MindFirstsDoeTwoRealProblemOrderExistenceMistakeConditionsIdealsTestsLogicBasesAbsolutesProfoundQuittingPsychologicalSuitsAssumptionInternalsSpheresFormalStrictNever QuitCorrespondence
Author:George Henry Lewes
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“Locke had illegitimately selected those parts of man he needed for his social contract and suppressed all the rest, a theoretically unsatisfactory procedure and a practically costly one. The bourgeois is the measure of the price paid, he who most of all cannot afford to look to his real self, who denies the existence of the thinly boarded-over basement in him, who is most made over for the purposes of a society that does not even promise him perfection or salvation but merely buys him off.”

MenLooksDoeMadeRealSelfPurposeSocialExistenceNeededPromisePerfectionPaidSalvationDenyContractsProceduresBourgeoisSelectedBasementsReal SelfSocial Contract
Book:Closing of the American Mind
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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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“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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“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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“This is exactly the message that fairy tales get across to the child in manifold form: that a struggle against severe difficulties in life is unavoidable, is an intrinsic part of human existence -- but that if one does not shy away, but steadfastly meets unexpected and often unjust hardships, one masters all obstacles and at the end emerges victorious.”

IfsLifeHumansChildrenDoeEndsMotivationalFormLife IsExistenceStruggleMastersVictoryMessagesDifficultyAdversityObstaclesTalesUpliftingFairyHard TimesUnexpectedShyHardshipFairy TaleSevereUnjustEncouragingTough TimesOvercoming AdversityHuman ExistenceFairytaleWords Of EncouragementManifold
Book:The uses of enchantment: the meaning and importance of fairy tales
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“The investor has the benefit of the stock market's daily and changing appraisal of his holdings, 'for whatever that appraisal may be worth', and, second, that the investor is able to increase or decrease his investment at the market's daily figure - 'if he chooses'. Thus the existence of a quoted market gives the investor certain options which he does not have if his security is unquoted. But it does not impose the current quotation on an investor who prefers to take his idea of value from some other source.”

IfsGivingMayDoeIdeasAbleCertainValuesExistenceSecurityFiguresSourceBenefitsIncreaseInvestmentCurrentsInvestorsQuotationsDecreaseAppraisal
Author:Benjamin Graham
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“The black middle-class in America is a prosperous community that is now larger in absolute terms than the black underclass. Does its existence not suggest that economic adversity is the result of failures of individual character rather than the lingering after-effects of racial discrimination and a slave system that ceased to exist well over a century ago?”

WellsDoeCharacterAmericaIndividualBlackTermCommunityResultsExistenceClassEconomicMiddleEffectsCenturyAbsolutesAdversitySlaveDiscriminationMiddle ClassProsperousLingeringRacial Discrimination
Author:David Horowitz
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“It is true that these mysteries are dreadful, and people have always drawn away from them. But where can we find anything sweet and glorious that would never wear this mask, the mask of the dreadful? Whoever does not, sometimes or other, give his full consent, his full and joyous consent to the dreadfulness of life, can never take possession of the unutterable abundance and power of our existence; can only walk on its edge, and one day, when the judgment is given, will have been neither alive nor dead.”

PeopleGivingDoeHas BeensSometimesGivenWalksExistenceAliveMysterySweetOne DayJudgmentEdgesPossessionGloriousAbundanceMaskConsentJoyous
Book:The Duino Elegies & The Sonnets to Orpheus: A Dual Language Edition
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“We try to evade the question of existence with property, prestige, power, possession, production, fun, and, ultimately, by trying to forget that we- that I- exist. No matter how much he thinks of God or goes to church, or how much he believes in religious ideas , if he, the whole man, is deaf to the question of existence, if he does not have an answer to it, he is marking time, and he lives and dies like one of the million things he produces. He thinks of God, instead of experiencing God.”

IfsThinkingMenTryingBelieveDoeIdeasMatterWholeWisdomDiesFunChurchReligiousAnswersForgetExistenceMillionsProducePropertyProductionsPossessionDeafPrestigeMarking TimeExperiencing God
Author:Erich Fromm
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“It is the profoundest of cosmic ironies. The divine power, our true spiritual essence, does not achieve perfection until it hits the 'rock' bottom of the cosmos - the dense and crude earth. It remains imperfect until the moment of entombment for the simple reason that until that dark nadir is reached the experiential adventure of existence remains incomplete, and Self is not yet endowed with the entire spectrum of the light of consciousness - from spirit to matter - from the highest high to the lowest low.”

DoeSelfMatterReasonMomentsLightEarthSpiritualSpiritDarkSimpleExistenceConsciousnessAchieveRocksDivineAdventureHighestLowsPerfectionEssenceRemainsBottomIronyCosmosCosmicImperfectLowestSpectrumIncompleteCrudeDenseDivine PowerNadir
Book:The New Hermetics: 21st Century Magick for Illumination and Power
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“Faith is not something that you can cultivate. If it happens to you, it happens, if it doesn't happen to you it doesn't happen, that's all. Does it mean to say - "I have to just sit and wait and someday it will fall upon me?" No, it is just that if you understand the fundamentals of living here, in this existence, you will see, for anything to happen, you must create the right kind of situation.”

IfsKindMeanDoeHappensFallWaitingExistenceSituationFundamentalsSomeday
Author:Jaggi Vasudev
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“If we can keep our minds calm on the subject of the "Eternity of God," if reason does not totter on her seat at the contemplation of underived existence, it will be strange if any other mystery relating to God should disturb us. He who can bring his reason to bow reverently at the idea of a Being who had no beginning, is well prepared to receive any communication of His will.”

IfsShouldMindWellsDoeIdeasReasonGodExistenceMysterySubjectsStrangeCommunicationEternityPreparedCalmContemplationSeatsBows
Author:Nehemiah Adams
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“There is another method of obtaining money... It does not presuppose the existence of accumulated results of previous development, and hence may be considered as the only one which is available in strict logic. This method of obtaining money is the creation of purchasing power by banks. The form it takes is immaterial.”

MayDoeFormPoliticsResultsExistenceEconomyCreationDevelopmentLogicMethodAvailableLiberalismStrictObtainingPurchasingPurchasing Power
Author:Joseph A. Schumpeter
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“Atheists are often charged with blasphemy, but it is a crime they cannot commit... When the Atheist examines, denounces, or satirises the gods, he is not dealing with persons but with ideas. He is incapable of insulting God, for he does not admit the existence of any such being... We attack not a person but a belief, not a binge but an idea, not a fact but a fancy.”

PersonsDoeIdeasFactsBeliefExistenceAtheismCrimeAtheistPositive AtheismCommitFancyIncapableInsultingBlasphemyBinge
Author:George William Foote
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“The one function that most gods seem to have in common is to give human existence some ultimate purpose - and, while it is not possible to disprove an ultimate purpose, there does not seem to be any evidence for it. This is not to say, of course, that there is no purpose in life at all: we all make our own purposes as we go through life. And life does not lose its value simply because it it not going to last forever.”

GivingHumansDoeSeemsLastsPurposeValuesCoursesLosesCommonExistenceForeverAtheismEvidenceUltimateFunctionPositive AtheismPurpose Of LifeHuman Existence
Author:Barbara Smoker
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“But the solution to the riddle of life and space and time lies outside space and time. For, as it should be abundantly clear by now, nothing inside a frame can state, or even ask, anything about that frame. The solution, then, is not the finding of an answer to the riddle of existence, but the realization that there is no riddle. This is the essence of the beautiful, almost Zen Buddhist closing sentences of the Tracticus: "For an answer which cannot be expressed the question too cannot be expressed. The riddle does not exist."”

ShouldDoeStatesBeautifulLyingAsksSpaceAnswersExistenceClearAtheismFindingsSolutionsEssenceSentencesRealizationBuddhistTime And SpaceClosingRiddleZen Buddhist
Book:Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies and Paradoxes
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“Totalitarianism, however, does not so much promise an age of faith as an age of schizophrenia. A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud. Such a society, no matter how long it persists, can never afford to become either tolerant or intellectually stable.”

LongDoeMatterFactsRunningAgePastLostForceExistenceClassPromiseSucceedDemandFunctionStructureObjectivesFraudArtificialStableLong RunsPersistRulingTotalitarianismDisbeliefClingingSchizophreniaAlterationsObjective Truth
Author:George Orwell
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“Christianity can be described as a theological materialism: It is that which transforms our material existence. If our faith does not throw us into the arms of the world, if it does not lead to our experience of responsibility, love, celebration, and our commitment to transformation, then, whatever we call it, we have nothing but an empty shell.”

IfsWorldDoeExistenceResponsibilityChristianityMaterialsArmsCommitmentEmptyTransformationMaterialismCelebrationShellsTheologicalEmpty Shell
Author:Peter Rollins
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“I have, for my own projected works and ideas, only the silliest and dewiest of hopes; no matter what, I am romantic enough or sentimental enough to wish to contribute something to life's fabric, to the world's beauty.... [S]imply to live does not justify existence, for life is a mere gesture on the surface of the earth, and death a return to that from which we had never been wholly separated; but oh to leave a trace, no matter how faint, of that brief gesture! For someone, some day, may find it beautiful!”

WorldMayDoeIdeasMatterEnoughEarthBeautifulLife IsWishMy OwnExistenceReturnNo Matter WhatMereSurfaceJustifyGesturesFabricSentimental
Author:Frank O'Hara
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