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Existential Quotes

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Existential Quotes

“Only a few years ago did it suddenly dawn on me that my existential fear regarding my nation’s future and my moral outrage regarding my nation’s occupation policy are not unconnected. On the one hand, Israel is the only nation in the West that is occupying another people. On the other hand, Israel is the only nation in the West that is existentially threatened. Both occupation and intimidation make the Israeli condition unique. Intimidation and occupation have become the two pillars of our condition.”

PeopleYearsTwoHandsNationsMoralConditionsPolicyUniqueYears AgoWestIsraelDawnOccupationExistentialThreatenedIsraeliOutragePillarsIntimidationMoral Outrage
Book:My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel
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“Our greatest challenge today is to couple conviction with doubt. By conviction, I mean some pragmatically developed faith, trust, or centeredness; and by doubt I mean openness to the ongoing changeability, mystery, and fallibility of the conviction.”

MeanTodayChallengesDoubtMysteryCoupleConvictionExistentialismOpennessExistentialOngoingFallibilityCenterednessFaith Trust
Book:The Paradoxical Self: Toward an Understanding of Our Contradictory Nature
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“The individual is defined only by his relationship to the world and to other individuals; he exists only by transcending himself, and his freedom can be achieved only through the freedom of others. He justifies his existence by a movement which, like freedom, springs from his heart but which leads outside of himself.”

WorldHeartIndividualExistenceMovementSpringDefinedJustifyExistentialTranscending
Book:The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
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“The notion of ambiguity must not be confused with that of absurdity. To declare that existence is absurd is to deny that it can ever be given a meaning; to say that it is ambiguous is to assert that its meaning is never fixed, that it must be constantly won. Absurdity challenges every ethics; but also the finished rationalization of the real would leave no room for ethics; it is because man's condition is ambiguous that he seeks, through failure and outrageousness, to save his existence.”

MenRealGivenChallengesRoomsExistenceConditionsEthicsNotionDenyFinishedAbsurdFixedConfusedExistentialAbsurdityAmbiguityAmbiguous
Book:The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
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“There is no doubt that healthy-mindedness is inadequate as a philosophical doctrine, because the evil facts which it refuses positively to account for are a genuine portion of reality; and they may after all be the best key to life's significance, and possibly the only openers of our eyes to the deepest levels of truth.”

MayFactsRealityEyeEvilLevelsDoubtKeysHealthyAccountsPhilosophicalRefuseGenuineDoctrineNo DoubtBeing The BestSignificancePortionsExistentialPositivelyInadequate
Book:The William James Reader
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“Therefore, it is we who are responsible for much of the evil in the world; and we are each morally required to accept rather than project that ponderous responsibility-lest we prefer instead to wallow in a perennial state of powerless, frustrated, furious, victimhood. For what one possesses the power to bring about, one has also the power to limit, Mitigate, counteract, or transmute.”

WorldStatesEvilResponsibilityAcceptingLimitsProjectsResponsibleFrustratedExistentialPowerlessFuriousVictimhood
Book:Anger, Madness, and the Daimonic: The Psychological Genesis of Violence, Evil, and Creativity
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“The citizens of a city are not guilty of the crimes committed in their city; but they are guilty as participants in the destiny of [humanity] as a whole and in the destiny of their city in particular; for their acts in which freedom was united with destiny have contributed to the destiny in which they participate. They are guilty, not of committing the crimes of which their group is accused, but of contributing to the destiny in which these crimes happened.”

WholeHumanityUnitedCitiesDestinyHappenedGroupsCrimeParticularCitizensCommittedGuiltyExistentialAccusedParticipantsContributingNot Guilty
Author:Paul Tillich
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“That because of this interplay of conscious and unconscious factors in guilt and the impossibility of legalistic blame, we are forced into an attitude of acceptance of the universal human situation and a recognition of the participation of every one of us in man's inhumanity to man.”

MenHumansAttitudeSituationAcceptanceConsciousUniversalBlameGuiltFactorsRecognitionUnconsciousExistentialParticipationImpossibilityInhumanityConscious And UnconsciousInhumanity To Man
Author:Rollo May
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“Science, is the creation by humans of a particular paradigm and methodology for discovering truth and understanding reality. Hence it can never fully reflect the hidden face of humanity, its creator, in the same sense that a computer can never become fully human or know what it means to be human: however sophisticated, these machines will forever remain mere artifacts of humanity.”

KnowsHumansMeanRealityFacesHumanityUnderstandingForeverCreationParticularComputerMachinesMereCreatorDiscoveringExistentialSophisticatedParadigmMethodologyArtifactsWhat It Means To Be Human
Book:Anger, Madness, and the Daimonic: The Psychological Genesis of Violence, Evil, and Creativity
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“Integrity is unity of the personality; it implies being brutally honest with ourselves about our intentionality. Since intentionality is inextricably bound up with the daimonic, this is never an easy, nor always pleasant pursuit. But being willing to admit our daimonic tendencies - to know them consciously and to wisely oversee them - brings with it the invaluable blessing of freedom, vigor, inner strength, and self-acceptance.”

KnowsSelfEasyHonestAcceptanceWillingPersonalityIntegrityBlessingUnityBoundsPursuitTendenciesPleasantInner StrengthSelf AcceptanceExistentialVigorInvaluableIntentionalityBrutally Honest
Book:Anger, Madness, and the Daimonic: The Psychological Genesis of Violence, Evil, and Creativity
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“In those days it was possible for a Greek to flee from an over-abundant reality as though it were but the tricky scheming off the imagination-and to flee, not like Plato into the land of eternal ideas, into the workshop off the world-creator, feasting one's eyes on the unblemished unbreakable archetypes, but into the rigor mortis off the coldest emptiest concept off all, the concept of being.”

WorldIdeasRealityEyeImaginationLandEternalConceptsCreatorGreekExistentialPlatoTrickyWorkshopsArchetypeRigorUnbreakableFeastingRigor Mortis
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
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“Every war, every revolution, demands the sacrifice of a generation, of a collectivity, by those who undertake it.”

WarGenerationsSacrificeRevolutionDemandExistentialCollectivity
Book:The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
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“To grasp life and meaning, we assume constancy where it does not exist. We name experiences, emotions, and subjective states and assume that what is named is as enduring as its name. Human beings blessed and cursed with consciousness - especially consciousness of their own being - think in terms of names, words, symbols.”

ThinkingHumansDoeStatesNamesTermHuman BeingsEmotionConsciousnessBlessedAssumingEndureSymbolsExistentialSubjectiveCursedConstancyBeing Blessed
Author:James Bugental
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“Symbols are specific acts or figures, while myths develop and elaborate these symbols into a story which contains characters and several episodes. The myth is thus more inclusive. But both symbol and myth have the same function psychologically; they are man's way of expressing the quintessence of his experience - his way of seeing his life, his self-image and his relations to the world of his fellow men and of nature - in a total figure which at the same moment carries the vital meaning of this experience.”

MenWorldWaySelfMomentsCharacterStoriesSeeingFiguresFunctionRelationFellowsMythSymbolsCarrieEpisodesExistentialFellow ManQuintessence
Author:Rollo May
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“What makes us most human is not whether we are or are not biologically driven and determined beings; but, rather, how we respond to this relative truth. The conscious choices we make in related to the dynamic, psychobiological forces of the daimonic define our humanity.”

HumansHumanityChoicesForceConsciousDeterminedDrivenRelatedRelativeExistentialRelative Truth
Book:Anger, Madness, and the Daimonic: The Psychological Genesis of Violence, Evil, and Creativity
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“There are cases where the slave does not know his servitude and where it is necessary to bring the seed of his liberation to him from the outside: his submission is not enough to justify the tyranny which is imposed upon him.”

KnowsDoeEnoughCasesSlaveSeedsTyrannyLiberationJustifyExistentialSubmissionServitude
Book:The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
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