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Existence Quotes

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Existence Quotes

“We Are All One. When we allow ourselves to become aware of this statement in its purest form, we open the doors to reveal the oneness of being. Using the process of conscious evolution we begin to recognise our true underlying identity, for once we have glimpsed the existence of this realm, we then begin to reveal what it is . . . . our true natural state.”

MenStatesFormProcessNaturalExistenceDoorsIdentityEvolutionConsciousStatementsOnenessRealmsRecognise
Author:Jim Harrison
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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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“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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“Zen, like life, defies exact definition, but its essence is the experience, moment by moment, of our own existence -- a natural, spontaneous encounter, unclouded by the suppositions and expectations that come between us and reality. It is, if you like, a paring down of life until we see it as it really is, free from our illusions; it is merely a divestment of ourselves until we recognize our own true nature.”

IfsMomentsRealityNaturalExistenceIllusionExpectationsEssenceDefinitionsEncountersSpontaneousTrue NatureSuppositionZen Like
Author:David Fontana
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“One ideological claim is that private property is theft, that the natural product of the existence of property is evil, and that private ownership therefore should not exist... What those who feel this way don't realize is that property is a notion that has to do with control - that property is a system for the disposal of power. The absence of property almost always means the concentration of power in the state.”

WayFeelsShouldMeanStatesEvilPoliticsRealizingNaturalExistenceEconomyProductsClaimsPropertyNotionAbsenceLiberalismConcentrationOwnershipTheftIdeologicalPrivate Property
Author:Daniel Patrick Moynihan
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“What can be accomplished by a few principles is not effected by many. But it seems that everything we see in the world can be accounted for by other principles, supposing God did not exist. For all natural things can be reduced to one principle, which is nature, and all voluntary things can be reduced to one principle, which is human reason, or will. Therefore there is no need to suppose God's existence.”

WorldNeedsHumansReasonSeemsNaturalExistencePrinciplesAtheismPositive AtheismAccomplishedNatural ThingsSupposingHuman Reason
Author:Thomas Aquinas
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“This is part of the involuntary bargain we make with the world just by being alive. We get to experiences the splendor of nature, the beauty of art, the balm of love and the sheer joy of existence, always with the knowledge that illness, injury, natural disaster, or pure evil can end it in an instant for ourselves or someone we love.”

WorldArtEndsJoyEvilNaturalExistenceAlivePureIllnessDisasterInstantInjurySheerBargainsSplendorInvoluntaryNatural DisasterSheer JoyPure Evil
Author:Jeff Greenfield
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“In some central and important cases, ... the existence of specific power relations in the society will produce an appearance of a particular kind. Certain features of the society that are merely local and contingent, and maintained in existence only by the continual exercise of power, will come to seem as if they were universal, necessary, invariant, or natural features of all forms of human social life, or as if they arose spontaneously and uncoercedly by free human action.”

IfsHumansKindImportantSeemsActionFormCertainSocialNaturalExistenceCasesProduceParticularExerciseUniversalRelationAppearanceLocalsFeaturesSocial LifeHuman Actions
Book:Philosophy and Real Politics
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“I have hitherto followed the lines marked out by the Theist in his attempt to prove that there exists a mind behind natural phenomena, and that the universe as we have it is, at least generally, an evidence of a plan designed by this mind. I have also pointed out that the only datum for such a conclusion is the universe we know. We must take that as a starting point. We can get neither behind it nor beyond it. We cannot start with God and deduce the universe from his existence; we must start with the world as we know it, and deduce God from the world.”

KnowsWorldMindUniverseNaturalLinesBehindsExistencePlansAtheismProveEvidenceStartingPositive AtheismConclusionDataStarting PointTheistNatural Phenomena
Author:Chapman Cohen
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“Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation forthe existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of the watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker.”

IfsKnowsMindDoeSaidPlayEyeFormPurposeProcessNaturalExistenceVisionRolesPlansEvolutionSightBlindSelfishExplanationUnconsciousSelectionNatural SelectionForesightSelfish GeneEvolution Of Life
Author:Richard Dawkins
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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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“For as soon as the procreative faculty is thwarted and the number of births diminished, the natural struggle for existence which allows only healthy and strong individuals to survive is replaced by a sheer craze to 'save' feeble and even diseased creatures at any cost. And thus the seeds are sown for a human progeny which will become more and more miserable from one generation to another, as long as Nature's will is scorned.”

HumansLongIndividualStrongNaturalNumbersExistenceStruggleGenerationsBirthHealthyCostCreaturesSeedsMiserableFacultySheerReplacedDiseasedScornedProgenyCrazeStruggle For ExistenceStrong Individuals
Book:Mein Kampf: My Struggle: (Vol. I & Vol. II) - (Complete & Illustrated Edition)
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“Profound meditation in solitude and silence frequently exalts the mind above its natural tone, fires the imagination, produces the most refined and sublime conceptions. The soul then tastes the purest and most refined delight, and almost loses the idea of existence in the intellectual pleasure it receives. The mind on every motion darts through space into eternity; and raised, in its free enjoyment of its powers by its own enthusiasm, strengthens itself in the habitude of contemplating the noblest subjects, and of adopting the most heroic pursuits.”

MindIdeasSoulLosesImaginationNaturalSpacePleasureExistenceSilenceFireMeditationSubjectsProduceTasteSolitudeIntellectualEternityProfoundRaisedDelightPursuitEnthusiasmToneEnjoymentConceptionHeroicContemplatingSublimeRefinedAdoptingDarts
Author:Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
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“The modern child may early in his or her existence have natural inclinations toward spirituality. The child may have imagination, originality, a simple and individual response to reality, and even a tendency to moments of thoughtful silence and absorption. All these tendencies, however, are soon destroyed by the dominant culture. The child becomes a yelling, brash, false little monster, brandishing a toy gun or dressed up like some character he has seen on television.”

MayChildrenLittlesMomentsCharacterRealityCultureSpiritualityIndividualImaginationNaturalSimpleExistenceSilenceModernTelevisionGunResponseMonstersTendenciesDestroyedThoughtfulOriginalityToysConsumerismDominantInclinationYellingOverconsumptionDressed UpAbsorptionBrashDominant CultureToy Guns
Author:Thomas Merton
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“Immensity is always there, but we so often become numb to it, or deceive ourselves into thinking our own lives and selves are what's large. Step into the ocean or walk on Mount Tamalpais, and that kind of amnesia and self-centeredness isn't possible. Enter the natural world at all, you see existence emerge, ripen, fall and continue, and you can't help but feel more tender towards self and others. That summoning into the large and the shared is what poems exist also to do.”

ThinkingWorldFeelsKindSelfHelpingFallNaturalWalksExistenceStepsOceanDeceivingNatural WorldNumbAmnesiaImmensitySelf CenterednessCenterednessSummoning
Author:Jane Hirshfield
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“Without the instruments and accumulated knowledge of the natural sciences... humans are trapped in a cognitive prison. They are like intelligent fish born in a deep shallowed pool. Wondering and restless, longing to reach out, they think about the world outside. They invent ingenious speculations and myths about the origin of the confining waters, of the sun and the sky and the stars above , and the meaning of their own existence. But they are wrong, always wrong because the world is too remote from ordinary experience to be merely imagined.”

ThinkingWorldHumansStarsWaterBornNaturalExistenceWonderSunSkyOrdinaryIntelligentInstrumentsLongingPrisonFishesMythPoolReach OutTrappedSpeculationRestlessCognitiveIngeniousNatural ScienceAlways Wrong
Author:E. O. Wilson
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“We see that God has implanted in all things a natural desire to exist with the fullest measure of existence that is compatible with their particular nature. To this end they are endowed with suitable faculties and activities; and by means of these there is in them a discernment that is natural and in keeping with the purpose of their knowledge, which ensures their natural inclination serving its purpose and being able to reach its fulfilment in that object towards which it is attracted by the weight of its own nature.”

MeanEndsAbleDesirePurposeNaturalExistenceObjectsParticularActivityAll ThingsWeightServingFacultyInclinationDiscernmentSuitableCompatibleFulfilment
Author:Nicholas of Cusa
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“If our Christianity has ceased to be serious about discipleship, if we have watered down the gospel into emotional uplift which makes no costly demands and which fails to distinguish between natural and Christian existence, then we cannot help regarding the cross as an ordinary everyday calamity, as one of the trials and tribulations of life. We have then forgotten that the cross means rejection and shame as well as suffering .”

IfsWellsMeanHelpingChristianSufferingNaturalExistenceChristianityFailingEmotionalSeriousDemandOrdinaryCrossesShameEverydayForgottenTrialsUpliftingRejectionDiscipleshipCalamityTribulationTrials And Tribulations
Author:Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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“Now consciousness, what is consciousness? Consciousness is being aware of one's surroundings, recognizing the existence, truth or fact of something; being aware of the very moment, the very instant that you are in; being aware of how you affect the human social, political, and natural ecology you are a part of and how it affects you. Consciousness is being informed and instructed through your groups peculiar culture on the effects of the varied ecologies on your immediate and distant ancestors, and to be aware of their interpretation of that experience.”

HumansMomentsFactsPoliticalCultureSocialNaturalExistenceConsciousnessGroupsEffectsInstantInterpretationPeculiarAncestorEcologyRecognizingSurroundings
Author:James Small
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“In this world, man is a target of death, an easy prey to calamities, here every morsel and every draught is liable to choke one, here one never receives a favour until he loses another instead, here every additional day in one's life is a day reduced from the total span of his existence, when death is the natural outcome of life, how can we expect immortality.”

MenWorldLife IsEasyLosesNaturalExistenceThis WorldImmortalityOutcomesTargetDayFavourDeep ThoughtPreyCalamityChokeWise Man Once SaidLiableDraught
Author:Ali ibn Abi Talib
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