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Existence Quotes

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Existence Quotes

“There is only one inborn erroneous notion ... that we exist in order to be happy ... So long as we persist in this inborn error ... the world seems to us full of contradictions. For at every step, in great things and small, we are bound to experience that the world and life are certainly not arranged for the purpose of maintaining a happy existence ... hence the countenances of almost all elderly persons wear the expression of ... disappointment.”

WorldPersonsLongSeemsPurposeOrderExistenceStepsExpressionErrorsNotionBoundsDisappointmentInsightGreat ThingsContradictionPersistMaintainingElderlyEvery StepCountenanceWorld And Life
Author:Arthur Schopenhauer
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“The historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of literature from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order.”

MenWritingCountryWholeFeelingsOrderLiteratureExistenceGenerationsTraditionHistoricalBonesSimultaneousIndividual Talent
Book:The Sacred Wood and Major Early Essays
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“The existence of God is not logically necessary, and yet, on the basis of some profound peculiar empirical order in the universe, it seems that He exists as the ultimate uncreated Being, implying a paradox, as no logically unnecessary entity can be uncreated. This paradox is the ultimate question asked by God, who is nothing but the ultimate questioner.”

SeemsOrderUniverseExistenceUltimateBasesProfoundParadoxPeculiarEntityUnnecessaryExistence Of GodImplyingQuestions AskedUltimate QuestionsOrder In The Universe
Author:Kedar Joshi
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“Modern man lives isolated in his artificial environment, not because the artificial is evil as such, but because of his lack of comprehension of the forces which make it work- of the principles which relate his gadgets to the forces of nature, to the universal order. It is not central heating which makes his existence 'unnatural,' but his refusal to take an interest in the principles behind it. By being entirely dependent on science, yet closing his mind to it, he leads the life of an urban barbarian.”

MenMindOrderEvilForceInterestBehindsExistencePrinciplesEnvironmentSocietyModernUniversalRelateDependentArtificialIsolatedUrbanClosingRefusalComprehensionUnnaturalBarbariansGadgetsModern ManForces Of NatureHeating
Book:The Act of Creation
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“It seems to me that Mr. Sculley understood the very nucleus of existence, that he had kept his young eyes and young heart even though his body had grown old. He saw straight through to the cosmic order of things, and he knew that life is not held only in flesh and bone, but also in those objects - a good, faithful pair of shoes; a reliable car; a pen that always works; a bike that has taken you many a mile.”

HeartBodySeemsEyeYoungLife IsOrderExistenceTakenSawsCarObjectsUnderstoodShoesBonesFleshMilesFaithfulPairsPensCosmicBikePair Of ShoesGood FaithNucleusYoung At Heart
Author:Robert R. McCammon
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“Sensible of the importance of Christian piety and virtue to the order and happiness of a state, I cannot but earnestly commend to you every measure for their support and encouragement ... Manners, by which not only the freedom, but the very existence of the republics, are greatly affected, depend much upon the public institutions of religion and the good education of youth; in both these instances our fathers laid wise foundations, for which their posterity have had reason to bless their memory.”

StatesReasonChristianOrderFatherMemoriesExistenceSupportVirtueWiseYouthDependsImportanceEncouragementInstitutionsFoundationInstanceMannersAffectedBlessRepublicSensiblePosterityOur FatherPietyGood EducationSupport And Encouragement
Author:John Hancock
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“Memories seem to surface in no particular order, with no time attached. Yesterday can seem as distant as last year. My life now consists of fragments where some are so blinding in their intensity that they make everything else indistinguishable. It feels as if my existence was extinguished in a flash, and afterwards my universe became incomprehensible. I want to remember everything. But perhaps I need to give it more time. Allow myself some rest. Distance myself a little, to see if I can make out a pattern. And face the truth about what is really there.”

IfsWantNeedsGivingFeelsYearsLittlesI CanSeemsLastsRememberFacesOrderUniverseMemoriesExistenceParticularDistancePatternsSurfaceYesterdayMore TimeIntensityFlashLast YearFragmentsMake OutRemembers EverythingFacing The TruthDistance Myself
Author:Linda Olsson
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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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“I am interested in the creativity of the criminal attitude because I recognize in it the existence of a special condition of crazy creativity. A creativity without morals fired only by the energy of freedom and the rejection of all codes and laws. For freedom rejects the dictated roles of the law and of the imposed order and for this reason is isolated.”

ReasonLawOrderEnergyExistenceAttitudeMoralRolesCreativityCrazySpecialConditionsCriminalsCodeRejectionRejectsIsolated
Author:Joseph Beuys
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“In our constant search for meaning in this baffling and temporary existence, trapped as we are within our three pounds of neurons, it is sometimes hard to tell what is real. We often invent what isn't there. Or ignore what is. We try to impose order, both in our minds and in our conceptions of external reality. We try to connect. We try to find truth. We dream and we hope. And underneath all of these strivings, we are haunted by the suspicion that what we see and understand of the world is only a tiny piece of the whole.”

WorldTryingMindRealSometimesHardWholeDreamRealityOrderThreeExistencePiecesConstantStriveTinyPoundsTemporaryConceptionTrappedSuspicionSearch For MeaningNeurons
Book:The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew
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“One reason for the primacy of the market in shaping the modern world is that it forces a reorganization of society in order to make the market work properly . When a market comes into existence, as Marx fully appreciated, it becomes a potent force driving social change.”

WorldReasonOrderForceSocialExistenceModernDrivingSocial ChangeAppreciatedModern WorldPrimacyReorganization
Book:The Political Economy of International Relations
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“Man never ceases to seek knowledge about the objects of his experiences, to understand their meaning for his existence and to react to them according to his understanding. Finally, out of the sum total of the meanings that he has deduced from his contacts with numerous single objects of his environment there grows a unified view of the world into which he finds himself "thrown" (to use an existentialist term again) and this view is of the third order.”

MenWorldUseOrderGrowsUnderstandingTermViewsExistenceEnvironmentAtheismObjectsThirdsPositive AtheismCeaseContactThrownUnifiedExistentialist
Author:Paul Watzlawick
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“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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“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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“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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“Zen purposes to discipline the mind itself, to make it its own master, through an insight into its proper nature. This getting into the real nature of one's own mind or soul is the fundamental object of Zen Buddhism. Zen, therefore, is more than meditation and Dhyana in its ordinary sense. The discipline of Zen consists in opening the mental eye in order to look into the very reason of existence.”

MindLooksRealSoulReasonEyePurposeOrderNatureExistenceMeditationObjectsMastersBuddhismDisciplineOrdinaryFundamentalsInsightOpeningZen BuddhismDhyana
Book:An Introduction to Zen Buddhism
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“The existence of a medium, after all, is its absolute justification, if as so many seem to think, it needs one and all comparison of potentialities is useless and irrelevant. Whether a water-color is inferior to an oil, or whether a drawing, an etching, or a photograph is not as important as either, is inconsequent. To have to despise something in order to respect something else is a sign of impotence. [emphasis added] Let us rather accept joyously and with gratitude everything through which the spirit of man seeks to an ever fuller and more intense self-realization.”

IfsThinkingMenNeedsImportantSelfSeemsSpiritOrderWaterExistenceAcceptingColorGratitudeAbsolutesPhotographOilDrawingIntenseSelf RealizationMediumsRealizationUselessComparisonDespiseJustificationInferiorsIrrelevantEmphasisImpotenceEtching
Author:Paul Strand
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“So when Jesus directs us to pray, “Thy kingdom come,” he does not mean we should pray for it to come into existence. Rather, we pray for it to take over at all points in the personal, social, and political order where it is now excluded: “On earth as it is in heaven.” With this prayer we are invoking it, as in faith we are acting it, into the real world of our daily existence”

WorldShouldMeanDoeRealEarthPoliticalOrderJesusHeavenSocialPrayerActingExistencePrayingKingdomsReal WorldExcludedKingdom Come
Author:Dallas Willard
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“So long as space remains, So long sentient beings' suffering remain, I will remain, In order to help, in order to serve... I am nothing but a servant to provide to others. So if you provide some happiness, some comfort to others, then your life becomes meaningful. If your life creates problems or suffering to others, then there's no meaning to your existence.”

IfsLongHelpingProblemSufferingOrderSpaceExistenceComfortRemainsMeaningfulServantTortureSentient Beings
Author:Dalai Lama
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“Literature is a form of language that breaks with the whole definition of genres as forms adapted to an order of representations, and becomes merely a manifestation of a language which has no other law than that of affirming in opposition to all other forms of discourse its own precipitous existence.”

ArtWholeFormLawPoetryOrderLiteratureLanguageExistenceBreakDefinitionsGenreManifestationOppositionRepresentationDiscourseAdaptedAffirming
Book:The Order of Things
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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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“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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“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 variables of quantification, 'something,' 'nothing,' 'everything,' range over our whole ontology, whatever it may be; and we are convicted of a particular ontological presupposition if, and only if, the alleged presuppositum has to be reckoned among the entities over which our variables range in order to render one of our affirmations true.”

IfsMayWholeOrderExistenceParticularRangeEntityAffirmationVariablesOntologyIfs And
Book:Quintessence: Basic Readings from the Philosophy of W.V. Quine
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“In the nature of our existence, we must act to achieve values. And in order to act appropriately, we need to value the beneficiary of our actions. In order to seek values, we must consider ourselves worthy of enjoying them. In order to fight for our happiness, we must consider ourselves worthy of happiness.”

NeedsActionValuesOrderFightingEnjoyExistenceAchieveWorthyOur ActionsBeneficiaries
Book:Nathaniel Brandens Self-Esteem Every Day: Reflections on Self-Esteem and Spirituality
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“God then makes people whom he puts right in the middle of all this loaded creation. Commanding them to care for creation, to manage it, to lovingly use it, to creatively order it... They are environmentalists. Being deeply connected with their environment is who they are. For them to be anything else or to deny their divine responsibility to care for all that God has made would be to deny something that is at the core of their existence. This is why litter and pollution are spiritual issues.”

PeopleMadeUseWould BeCareSpiritualOrderExistenceResponsibilityIssuesEnvironmentMiddleCreationDivineEnvironmentalDenyConnectedCoreManagePollutionLoadedEnvironmentalist
Author:Rob Bell
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“I believe in the supreme excellence of righteousness; I believe that the law of righteousness will triumph in the universe over all evil; I believe that in the attempt to fulfil the law of righteousness, however imperfect it must remain, are to be found the inspiration, the consolation, and the sanctification of human existence. We live in order to finish an, as yet, unfinished universe, unfinished so far as the human, that is, the highest part of it, is concerned. We live in order to develop the superior qualities of man which are, as yet, for the most part latent.”

MenBelieveHumansInspirationLawOrderUniverseEvilFoundI BelieveExistenceQualityHighestConcernedExcellenceI Believe InSupremeSuperiorsTriumphRighteousnessImperfectConsolationHuman ExistenceUnfinishedSanctificationLatent
Author:Felix Adler
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“Politicians argue for abortion largely because they do not want to spend the necessary money to feed, clothe and educate more people... There are those who argue that the right to privacy is of higher order than the right to life. I do not share that view... That was the premise of slavery. You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore outside of your right to concerned.”

PeopleWantOrderViewsExistenceShareHigherPoliticianConcernedSlaverySlaveArguingAbortionPrivacyTreatmentProtestEducatePremisesRight To LifePlantationsRight To Privacy
Author:Jesse Jackson
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“The individual feels the vanity of human desires and aims, and the nobility and marvelous order which are revealed in nature and in the world of thought. He feels the individual destiny as an imprisonment and seeks to experience the totality of existence as a unity full of significance.”

WorldFeelsHumansDesireOrderIndividualExistenceDestinyAimUnityVanitySignificanceMarvelousNobilityTotalityImprisonment
Book:Einstein on Politics: His Private Thoughts and Public Stands on Nationalism, Zionism, War, Peace, and the Bomb
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“Many of our actions degrade our habitat because we undertake them in order to reach goals whose allure blinds us to myriad dire consequences. In order to fuel our complex civilizations, we are lacing our planet's atmosphere with carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that, if it has not already begun doing so, will soon warm the Ice Age climate to which we owe our very existence.”

IfsAgeActionOrderGoalExistencePlanetsCivilizationConsequenceClimateComplexesWarmIceAtmosphereFuelGasCarbonOur ActionsOur PlanetDegradeGreenhousesHabitatCarbon DioxideGreenhouse GasesAllureIce Age
Author:Steven M. Stanley
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“As for us, we were never concerned with the Kantian-priestly and vegetarian-Quaker prattle about the "sacredness of human life." We were revolutionaries in opposition, and have remained revolutionaries in power. To make the individual sacred we must destroy the social order which crucifies him. And this problem can only be solved by blood and iron.”

MenHumansFactsProblemOrderIndividualSocialExistenceBloodHe ManRedConcernedImportanceSacredTerrorHuman LifeRevolutionaryOppositionIronVegetarianSovietHistoricSanctionsSocial OrderSacrednessQuaker
Author:Leon Trotsky
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“In order to make a success of old age, one must begin it earlier, and not try to postpone it as long as possible. In the middle of life we must stop to think, to organize our existence with an eye to a still distant future, instead of allowing ourselves to be entirely sucked into the professional and social whirl. It is then that it is important to give place little by little to less external activities, less technical and more cultural, which will survive the moment of retirement.”

ThinkingGivingTryingLittlesLongStillsImportantMomentsEyeAgeOrderSocialExistenceMiddleActivityOld AgeRetirementAllowingOrganize
Book:Learn to Grow Old
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“This spirit of freedom is expanding even where it must struggle against the external obstacles of governments that misunderstand their own function. Such governments are illuminated by the example that the existence of freedom need not give cause for the least concern regarding public order and harmony in the commonwealth. If only they refrain from inventing artifices to keep themselves in it, men will gradually raise themselves from barbarism.”

IfsMenNeedsGivingGovernmentSpiritOrderCausesExistenceStruggleExampleConcernFunctionHarmonyRaisesObstaclesExpandingInventingRefrainBarbarismCommonwealthArtifice
Book:Perpetual Peace and Other Essays: on Politics, History, and Morals
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