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Existence Quotes

Browse 6829 quotes about Existence.

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Existence Quotes

“"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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“But deepest of all illusory Appearances, for hiding Wonder, as for many other ends, are your two grand fundamental world-enveloping Appearances, SPACE and TIME. These, as spun and woven for us from before Birth itself, to clothe our celestial ME for dwelling here, and yet to blind it, lie all-embracing, as the universal canvas, or warp and woof, whereby all minor Illusions, in this Phantasm Existence, weave and paint themselves. In vain, while here on Earth, shall you endeavor to strip them off; you can, at best, but rend them asunder for moments, and look through.”

WorldLooksTwoEndsMomentsEarthLyingSpaceExistenceWonderBirthIllusionUniversalFundamentalsBlindPaintAppearanceVainEndeavorHidingMinorsCanvasTime And SpaceDwellingCelestialWovenIllusorySpunWarp
Book:Carlyle Reader
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“And I, who timidly hate life, fear death with fascination. I fear this nothingness that could be something else, and I fear it as nothing and as something else simultaneously, as if gross horror and non-existence could coincide there, as if my coffin could entrap the eternal breathing of a bodily soul, as if immortality could be tormented by confinement. The idea of hell, which only a satanic soul could have invented seems to me to have derived from this sort of confusion - a mixture of two different fears that contradict and contaminate each other.”

IfsTwoIdeasDifferentSoulSeemsHateExistenceHellHorrorEternalConfusionBreathingImmortalityNothingnessGrossMixturesFascinationFear Of DeathCoffinsSatanicConfinementNon ExistenceHate Life
Author:Fernando Pessoa
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“It seems significant that according to quantum physics the indestructibility of energy on one hand which expresses its timeless existence and the appearance of energy in space and time on the other hand correspond to two contradictory (complementary) aspects of reality. In fact, both are always present, but in individual cases the one or the other may be more pronounced.”

MayTwoFactsHandsRealitySeemsIndividualEnergySpaceExistenceCasesAspectAppearancePhysicsSignificantQuantumTimelessTime And SpaceContradictoryQuantum PhysicsComplementary
Book:Atom and Archetype: The Pauli/Jung Letters, 1932-1958
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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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“Know that the difficulties which lead to confusion in the question what is the purpose of the Universe or of any of its parts, arise from two causes: first, man has an erroneous idea of himself, and believes that the whole world exists only for his sake; secondly, he is ignorant both about the nature of the sublunary world, and about the Creator's intention to give existence to all beings whose existence is possible, because existence is undoubtedly good.”

KnowsMenWorldGivingFirstsBelieveTwoIdeasWholePurposeUniverseCausesExistenceDifficultyIntentionSakeCreatorAriseWhole WorldIgnorantConfusion
Book:The Guide for the Perplexed
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“Paradoxically, capital has unleashed myriad objects upon us, in their manifold horror and sparkling splendor. Two hundred years of idealism, two hundred years of seeing humans at the center of existence, and now the objects take revenge, terrifyingly huge, ancient, long-lived, threateningly minute, invading every cell in our body.”

YearsHumansLongTwoBodyExistenceSeeingMinutesObjectsHugeHorrorHundredAncientRevengeCellsIdealismSplendorSparklingUnleashedManifoldInvading
Author:Timothy Morton
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“Wherever the Industrial system has reached its second generation it is threatened by two mortal perils. The first is the demand by an organized proletariat for sustenance without relation to the product of its labor; a demand which threatens the very existence of PROFIT (on the necessary presumption of which Capitalism reposes). The second, and immediately graver danger is that of a revolt for the confiscation of the means of production.”

FirstsMeanTwoWisdomPoliticsExistenceEconomyGenerationsDangerProductsDemandCapitalismLaborRelationProfitProductionsMortalsOrganizedLiberalismThreatenedPerilRevoltReposePresumptionProletariatSustenance
Author:Hilaire Belloc
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“They had rejected the soul-body dichotomy, with its two corollaries: the impotence of man's mind and the damnation of this earth; they had rejected the doctrine of suffering as man's metaphysical fate, they proclaimed man's right to the pursuit of happiness and were determined to establish on earth the conditions required for man's proper existence, by the "unaided" power of their intellect.”

MenMindTwoSoulBodyEarthSufferingExistenceFateAtheismConditionsIntellectDeterminedPursuitDoctrineRejectedMetaphysicalPursuit Of HappinessDamnationImpotenceDichotomy
Author:Ayn Rand
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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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“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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“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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“The intimate coupling of two men or two women is not marriage. It is a pale and misshapen counterfeit that will only serve to empty marriage of its meaning and destroy the institution that is the keystone in the arch of civilization... Marriage is the sine qua non for healthy children and a stable society. It is 'fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race.'”

MenChildrenTwoRaceExistenceCivilizationHealthySurvivalEmptyInstitutionsFundamentalsIntimateStablePaleArchesCounterfeitKeystonesCouplingHealthy Children
Author:D. James Kennedy
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“The attempt to apply rational arithmetic to a problem in geometry resulted in the first crisis in the history of mathematics. The two relatively simple problems -- the determination of the diagonal of a square and that of the circumference of a circle -- revealed the existence of new mathematical beings for which no place could be found within the rational domain.”

FirstsTwoProblemFoundSimpleExistenceDeterminationMathematicsCrisisCirclesRationalMathematicalSquaresDomainGeometryArithmeticDiagonal
Author:David van Dantzig
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“Do you think it interests me that this painting represents two figures? These two figures existed, they exist no more. The sight of them gave me an initial emotion, little by little their real presence grew indistinct they became a fiction for me, then they disappeared, or rather, were turned into problems of all kinds. For me they are no longer two figures but shapes and colours, don't misunderstand me, shapes and colours, though, that sum up the idea of the two figures and preserve the vibration of their existence.”

ThinkingKindLittlesTwoIdeasRealProblemInterestEmotionExistenceFictionFiguresPaintingGrewShapesSightAll KindsPreservesColourInitialsVibrations
Author:Pablo Picasso
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“The state of emotional intoxication allows one to grasp existence in one's self and in the other, as both subjectivity and passivity. The two partners merge in this ambiguous unity; each one is freed of his own presence and achieves immediate communication with the other.”

TwoSelfStatesExistenceAchieveEmotionalCommunicationUnityPartnersSubjectivityAmbiguousIntoxicationPassivity
Book:The Marquis de Sade: an essay by Simone de Beauvoir
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“Society takes what it wants. The artist himself does not count, because there is no actual existence for the work of art. The work of art is always based on the two poles of the onlooker and the maker, and the spark that comes from the bipolar action gives birth to something - like electricity. But the onlooker has the last word, and it is always posterity that makes the masterpiece. The artist should not concern himself with this, because it has nothing to do with him.”

WantGivingShouldDoeArtTwoActionLastsArtistExistenceBirthArt IsConcernWorks Of ArtMakersSparksElectricityMasterpieceLast WordsPosterityBipolar
Author:Marcel Duchamp
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