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Existentialism Quotes

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Existentialism Quotes

“But if one doesn't really exist, one wonders why..." she hesitated. "Why one makes such a fuss about things," Anthony suggested. "All that howling and hurrahing and gnashing of teeth. About the adventures of a self that isn't really a self—just the result of a lot of accidents. And of course," he went on, "once you start wondering, you see at once that there is no reason for making such a fuss. And then you don't make a fuss—that is, if you're sensible. Like me," he added, smiling.”

ExistentialismAbsurdityNihilismBrave New WorldHuxleyAbsurdismAldous HuxleyAldousEyeless In Gaza
Book:Eyeless In Gaza
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“La voluntad, el deseo de vivir, es tan fuerte en el animal como en el hombre. En el hombre es mayor la comprensión. A más comprender, corresponde menos desear. Esto es lógico, y además se comprueba en la realidad. La apetencia por conocer se despierta en los individuos que aparecen al final de una evolución, cuando el instinto de vivir languidece. El hombre, cuya necesidad es conocer, es como la mariposa que rompe la crisálida para morir. El individuo sano, vivo, fuerte, no ve las cosas como son, porque no le conviene. Está dentro de una alucinación. Don Quijote, a quien Cervantes quiso dar un sentido negativo, es un símbolo de la afirmación de la vida. Don Quijote vive más que todas las personas cuerdas que le rodean, vive más y con más intensidad que los otros. El individuo o el pueblo que quiere vivir se envuelve en nubes como los antiguos dioses cuando se aparecían a los mortales. El instinto vital necesita de las ficción para afirmarse. La ciencia entonces, el instinto de crítica, el instinto de averiguación, debe encontrar una verdad: la cantidad de mentira que se necesita para la vida”

ScienceExistentialismDon QuijotePesimismCynism
Book:El árbol de la ciencia
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“This evening, which I have tried to spirit away, is a strange burden to me. While time moves on, while the day will soon end and I already wish it gone, there are men who have entrusted all their hopes to it, all their love and their last efforts. There are dying men or others who are waiting for a debt to come due, who wish that tomorrow would never come. There are others for whom the day will break like a pang of remorse; and others who are tired, for whom the night will never be long enough to give them the rest that they need. And I - who have lost my day - what right do I have to wish that tomorrow comes?”

TimeExistenceMemoryExistentialismTemporality
Book:Le Grand Meaulnes
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“We have been cut off, the past has been ended and the family has broken up and the present is adrift in its wheelchair. ... That is no gap between the generations, that is a gulf. The elements have changed, there are whole new orders of magnitude and kind. [...] My grandparents had to live their way out of one world and into another, or into several others, making new out of old the way corals live their reef upward. I am on my grandparents' side. I believe in Time, as they did, and in the life chronological rather than in the life existential. We live in time and through it, we build our huts in its ruins, or used to, and we cannot afford all these abandonings.”

LifePastTimeFamilyHistoryDevelopmentExistentialismPresentModernityGeneration GapChronologyBuild UpBreakage
Book:Angle of Repose
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“Who gives a flying fuck about Q3 projections? When you are on your deathbed, rattling out your last breath, are you going to think fondly about the time you optimized the synergy of your workload? Bullshit! You’re going to think about the women you didn’t sleep with, the wine you didn’t drink, and the fights you didn’t start because you had an early meeting the next morning.”

TimeRegretPrioritiesMeaning Of LifeExistentialismMortalityCarpe DiemLife ChoicesWork Life BalanceHedonism
Book:Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”
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“Time to sit and contemplate life. As I sit and contemplate, I begin to realize how short our lives actually are. I need to do something... but when I'm involved with a project, I lose track of time. I turn around and years of my life are suddenly gone. If... I sit and do nothing... then... time seems to slow... to a crawl... but... I accomplish nothing. If I could manage to do something and nothing at the same time, it'll seem like life lasts forever. But I'm wasting time thinking about wasting time. Perhaps there's something on the tee-vee.”

LifeHumorTimeExistentialism
Book:Too Much Coffee Man's Parade of Tirade
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“Can’t Handle Freedom (The Sonnet) Whole human is the first human, All else are but wannabe. Designation human says it all, Yet why do you chase terminology! Even when you broke free from religion, You could not handle that utter freedom! Like a rightful new descendant of divisionists, You chained the word "human" with an "ism". It is like you can't handle being free, You have to stay enslaved by one ism or another. They used to keep the world apart with religions, Today the same is done by new-age dividers. Human, human, human - that is all we ever are. Not humanist, not socialist, just carers of each other.”

IdeologyOnenessExistentialismFreedom Of ThoughtFreethinkerNonsectarianismNondualismFreedom Of MindPartisanismFreethinking Poetry
Book:Himalayan Sonneteer: 100 Sonnets of Unsubmission
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“I am a psychological and historical structure. Along with existence, I received a way of existing, or a style. All of my actions and thoughts are related to this structure, and even a philosopher’s thought is merely a way of making explicit his hold upon the world, which is all he is. And Yet, I am free, not in spite of or beneath these motivations, but rather by their means. For that meaningful life, that particular signification of nature and history that I am, does not restrict my access to the world; it is rather my means of communication with it”

PhilosophyExistenceExistentialismPhenomenologyPhenomenological Existentialism
Book:Phenomenology of Perception
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“We see, then, that even from the zoological point of view, which is the least interesting and—note this—not decisive, a being in such condition can never achieve a genuine equilibrium; we also see something that differs from the idea of challenge-response in Toynbee and, in my judgement, effectively constitutes human life: namely, that no surroundings or change of surroundings can in itself be described as an obstacle, a difficulty, and a challenge for man, but that the difficulty is always relative to the projects which man creates in his imagination, to what he customarily calls his ideals; in short, relative to what man wants to be. This affords us an idea of challenge-and-response which is much deeper and more decisive than the merely anecdotal, adventitious, and accidental idea which Toynbee proposes. In its light, all of human life appears to us as what it is permanently: a dramatic confrontation and struggle of man with the world and not a mere occasional maladjustment which is produced at certain moments.”

LifePhilosophyHumanityHistoryExistentialismConfrontationEquilibriumZoologyToynbee
Book:An Interpretation of Universal History
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“Antiseptic Awakening by Stewart Stafford See the rainbow spattered With dark blood moon juice. This creeping haemorrhage, A lacerated spectrum merged. Bruised trickles not halting, Violations in crimson stealth. Impotent, alleged lifeforms, Ashen foot-dragging below. Casually surrendered hues, The arterial strain's zenith. No colour in cheek nor sky, Bleached by antiseptic snow. © 2026, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”

ExistentialismSurrealismColorsDark AcademiaContemporary PoetryContemporary LiteraturePhilosophical PoetryGothic PoetryUrban DecayStewart Stafford
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“A desire to attain short-term happiness while laboring under the weight a looming death sentence is an obvious paradox. Suicide, as distinguished from medical euthanasia, is an emotional reaction to the absurdity of life. Suicide is a panic-stricken reflex induced by the sinister twins of fear and foreboding. A rational person does not commit self-murder because their longing for happiness is incongruent with their present day reality. Suicide is a superficial response to hard times; suicide is a pusillanimous solution. A more measured reaction and, therefore, ultimately a braver and logical tactic is to meet life’s pillbox of irrationality headfirst. Upon soul-searching reflection, a thinking person accepts that while he or she might never comprehend a unifying meaning of life they still prefer to experience each permitted day of life to the fullest. A pragmatic person accepts the cold fact that happiness is fleeting and death is inevitable. By acknowledging and accepting the underlying absurdity of life, the prisoner awakens to discover his own humanity. By refusing to cooperate with death, by working each day to expand personal consciousness, by savoring each moment of life regardless of its hazards, adversities, misfortunes, and seemingly lack of overriding purpose, an impertinent ward of time transcends his or her incarnate incarceration.”

SuicideExistentialismAbsurdityNihilismExistential CrisisExistential AngstNihilisticExistential Anguish
Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
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“I cannot shun the past because it contains information that is useful to script future goals. Looking back into the opaque window of reductive retrospect, what essential opportunities exist today that beckon one to seek with unrestrained enthusiasm? What iridescent signals flare from our conceptual self that if we heedlessly ignore their luminous summons, such deliberate acts of omission will suture the apex of our souls, relegating us to the dreaded curse of mucking along in an ordinary life stalled out by our overweening fear of estrangement?”

PastLife LessonsExistentialismLearning From MistakesPastimeExistential CrisisExistential AngstLearning From The PastLearning From AdversityExistential Anguish
Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
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“This feeling of adventure definitely does not come from events: I have proved it. It’s rather the way in which the moments are linked together. I think this is what happens: you suddenly feel that time is passing, that each instant leads to another, this one to another one, and so on; that each instant is annihilated, and that it isn’t worth while to hold it back, etc., etc. (. . .) If I remember correctly, they call that the irreversibility of time.”

HappinessTimeExistenceAdventureClarityExistentialismSartreExistential PhilosophyExistential Anguish
Book:Nausea
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“The nihilist looks around at everything and comes to terms with what seems to be obvious. The sun is one tiny dying star in an enormous universe. One day the sun will burn out or explode, destroying us all. The earth is a molten rock that could either be blown up by nuclear weapons or an erratic comet. We are one of the seven billion nameless faceless ones currently living on this rock. What does our existence matter to this rock floating around a dying star within the expanse of an enormous universe? Not much.”

AtheismExistentialismNihilismApologeticsRavi ZachariasWilliam Lane Craig
Book:Clear Minds & Dirty Feet: A Reason To Hope, A Message To Share
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“We must all find pointless causes to live for, or why bother with breath? Because, on reflection, once you have seen your own face and recognised the colour of your eyes, tasted the air and smelled the soil, drunk from the purest fountains and the dirtiest wells, that is the kindest thing you can say about life. Its's not nothing.”

Life QuotesExistentialismHope QuotesSouth Asian LiteratureSouth Asian Writer
Book:The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
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“Anybody who has done high school physics knows Newton’s Third Law. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. You push against a wall; it pushes back against you. I love the poetry hidden in these truths, in the many laws we’ve discovered that underpin the universal fabric. We search for meaning ever hungrier, perhaps even with desperation: the symmetry in the equations freaks us out; for all we know, there is just us on this lonely little marble in the inky void.”

ScienceExistentialismCosmology
Book:Stronger Than Lions
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“Many Minds, Many Lanes (Sonnet) Poetry is a way of life, and nobody knows the way better than those lost. And when poetry meets science, there is nothing more magically potent than that. Science is a way of sight, and nobody walks it better than the undoctrinated. Religion is a way of light, and nobody lives it better than the undivided. End of rigidity is the beginning of religion, end of division is the beginning of divinity. To acknowledge prejudice is the awakening of reason, which is the bedrock of curiosity. Truth of good is truth of God - there is nothing higher, more divine. To me faith, science, poetry, all same, many lanes to lift our one humankind.”

TruthScienceReligionDivineToleranceTheologyExistentialismHumanistIntegrationAdvaita
Book:Azad Earth Army: When The World Cries Blood
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“Rien n’est petit en effet; quiconque est sujet aux pénétrations profondes de la nature, le sait. Bien qu’aucune satisfaction absolue ne soit donnée à la philosophie, pas plus de circonscrire la cause que de limiter l’effet, le contemplateur tombe dans des extases sans fond à cause de toutes ces décompositions de forces aboutissant à l’unité. Tout travaille à tout. L’algèbre s’applique aux nuages ; l’irradiation de l’astre profite à la rose ; aucun penseur n’oserait dire que le parfum de l’aubépine est inutile aux constellations. Qui donc peut calculer le trajet d’une molécule? que savons-nous si des créations de mondes ne sont point déterminées par des chutes de grains de sable? qui donc connaît les flux et les reflux réciproques de l’infiniment grand et de l’infiniment petit, le retentissement des causes dans les précipices de l’être, et les avalanches de la création? Un ciron importe ; le petit est grand, le grand est petit ; tout est en équilibre dans la nécessité ; effrayante vision pour l’esprit. Il y a entre les êtres et les choses des relations de prodige ; dans cet inépuisable ensemble, de soleil à puceron, on ne se méprise pas ; on a besoin les uns des autres. La lumière n’emporte pas dans l’azur les parfums terrestres sans savoir ce qu’elle en fait ; la nuit fait des distributions d’essence stellaire aux fleurs endormies. Tous les oiseaux qui volent ont à la patte le fil de l’infini. La germination se complique de l’éclosion d’un météore et du coup de bec de l’hirondelle brisant l’œuf, et elle mène de front la naissance d’un ver de terre et l’avènement de Socrate. Où finit le télescope, le microscope commence. Lequel des deux a la vue la plus grande? Choisissez. Une moisissure est une pléiade de fleurs ; une nébuleuse est une fourmilière d’étoiles. Même promiscuité, et plus inouïe encore, des choses de l’intelligence et des faits de la substance. Les éléments et les principes se mêlent, se combinent, s’épousent, se multiplient les uns par les autres, au point de faire aboutir le monde matériel et le monde moral à la même clarté. Le phénomène est en perpétuel repli sur lui-même. Dans les vastes échanges cosmiques, la vie universelle va et vient en quantités inconnues, roulant tout dans l’invisible mystère des effluves, employant tout, ne perdant pas un rêve de pas un sommeil, semant un animalcule ici, émiettant un astre là, oscillant et serpentant, faisant de la lumière une force et de la pensée un élément, disséminée et indivisible, dissolvant tout, excepté ce point géométrique, le moi ; ramenant tout à l’âme atome ; épanouissant tout en Dieu ; enchevêtrant, depuis la plus haute jusqu’à la plus basse, toutes les activités dans l’obscurité d’un mécanisme vertigineux, rattachant le vol d’un insecte au mouvement de la terre,subordonnant, qui sait? ne fût-ce que par l’identité de la loi, l’évolution de la comète dans le firmament au tournoiement de l’infusoire dans la goutte d’eau. Machine faite d’esprit. En grenage énorme dont le premier moteur est le moucheron et dont la dernière roue est le zodiaque.”

PhilosophyScienceExistentialismFellowshipCausality
Author:Victor Hugo
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“I think about all my patients who've died. Older people, most of them. But not all. Looking back, I try to remember if the young ones were marked somehow. Whether they might have done something to bring their fates down on themselves. But they didn't, Danny. One day God or Fate just said, 'I will not let you be happy. I will not give you children. I will not let you breathe another day. I will take away your ability to move."'" "Warren-" "No, listen. This is important. I've tried to believe, all my life. To have faith that there was justice in life, some larger plan or meaning. But I can't do it any more. I've watched some of the best people I ever met get crippled or taken before they reached thirty, forty, whatever. Babies, too. I've watched babies die of leuke mia. I've watched infants die from infections, bleeding from their eyes and ears. Terrible birth defects...I look for a reason, a pattern, anything that might justify all that. But nothing does. Nothing does. Until I got sick myself, I played the same game of denial that all doctors do. But, Danny, my cancer ripped the scales from my eyes. I go to these funerals and listen to smug preachers telling grieving people that God has a plan. Well, that's a lie. All my life I've followed the rules. I've toed the line, given to the less fortunate, followed the Commandments . . . and it hasn't mattered one bit. And don't tell me about Job, okay? If you tell me God is testing me by killing me... that's like saying we had to destroy a village in order to save it. It's a cruel joke that we play on ourselves. And don't tell me it's all made right in the afterlife, because you know what? The agony of one infant dying senselessly mocks all the golden trumpets of heaven. I don't want to sit at the right hand of a God who can torture children, or even one who sits by and allows them to be tortured. Free will, my ass. I made no choice to die at thirty seven. This one's on God's account, Major. We look for meaning where there is none, because we're too afraid to accept randomness. Well, I've accepted it. Embraced it, even. And once you do that, the world just doesn't look the same anymore.”

GodDeathFaithHeavenEternityExistentialism
Book:Third Degree
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“Atheists are the most honest of the human race. These people are unable to live a double life; they are unable to lie to themselves. Of course it's an evolutionary handicap, and if that handicap was widespread, our species would run the risk of extinction”

LifeGodReligionFaithSpiritualityHeavenReligiousExistenceDoubtAtheismHonestyMoralityIntegritySurvivalRespectEthicsLiesAtheistDebateFaith QuotesFaithfulParadiseMeaning Of LifeSelf RespectExistentialismHeavenlyMaterialismLiarsSurvivorSincerityAfterlifeGoddessFaith In GodSpirituality QuotesAgnosticLieGodsFaithfulnessReligious FaithHeavenly FatherHeaven And HellThere Is No GodAgnosticismSurviveHeaven QuotesDoubtfulUnbeliefAtheisticNaturalismReligion And PhiloshophySurvival InstinctReligion SpiritualityFaith In YourselfHeaven On EarthLiarUnbelieversThe Great Pearl Of WisdomSurvival Of The FittestHonesty QuotesSpirituality Vs ReligionDoubtersHonesty IntegrityDoubtsBangambikiSurvival QuotesSurvival StoryFalse GodsIntegrity QuotesAtheistsAtheist QuotesHeavensLying QuotesAtheism QuotesParadise QuotesFear Of GodDoubting MindSurvivalistFaith ReasonHeavenly RewardsDoubtingAtheist ArgumentSurvivalismReligion Vs ScienceDoubts QuotesFaith Vs ReasonAgnosticsSurvival Is The Name Of The GameHonesty Integrity RelationshipHabyarimana BangambikiParadisesSupernaturalismUnbelieverDoubtfulnessSecular EthicsAtheism DefinedDoubtful ThoughtsFalse GodLiars QuotesAtheist ArgumentsAtheistic PhilosophyHonesty Friendship TruthAgnostic QuotesAgnostic AtheismAgnostic QuoteAtheist PhilosophersAtheistic ReligionAgnostic PrayerAtheist ClaimsAtheist ClubHonesty Integrity WordsUnbelieve QuotesHonesty From WithinIntegrity Of A Salesman
Book:Pearls Of Eternity
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“Don't create unbelief or doubt in people's minds. When you do so you ruin their lives and you have nothing to give them in its place. It's ok if people delude themselves; those delusions keep their day running.”

LifeGodReligionFaithSpiritualityHopeBeliefHeavenReligiousExistenceDoubtAtheismHonestyMoralityIntegrityRespectEthicsAtheistBelieverDebateFaith QuotesFaithfulParadiseMeaning Of LifeSelf RespectExistentialismHopefulHeavenlyDelusionMaterialismHopelessSincerityAfterlifeGoddessFaith In GodSpirituality QuotesAgnosticGodsHopelessnessHope QuotesFaithfulnessReligious FaithBelief QuotesHeavenly FatherHeaven And HellThere Is No GodAgnosticismHeaven QuotesDoubtfulUnbeliefAtheisticNaturalismReligion And PhiloshophyBelief In GodReligion SpiritualityFaith In YourselfHopesDeludedHopeful And EncouragingHeaven On EarthDelusionalUnbelieversThe Great Pearl Of WisdomBelievingHope And DespairHonesty QuotesSpirituality Vs ReligionDoubtersHonesty IntegrityDoubtsBangambikiHope For Each DayFalse GodsIntegrity QuotesAtheistsHopeful QuotesBelief SystemAtheist QuotesHeavensAtheism QuotesParadise QuotesBeliefs QuotesHopingFear Of GodDespair HopeDoubting MindFaith ReasonHeavenly RewardsDoubtingAtheist ArgumentDespair QuotesReligion Vs ScienceDoubts QuotesFaith Vs ReasonAgnosticsHonesty Integrity RelationshipHabyarimana BangambikiParadisesDespair And AttitudeSupernaturalismUnbelieverDoubtfulnessSecular EthicsAtheism DefinedDoubtful ThoughtsFalse GodAtheist ArgumentsAtheistic PhilosophyHonesty Friendship TruthAgnostic QuotesAgnostic AtheismAgnostic QuoteAtheist PhilosophersAtheistic ReligionDespairingAgnostic PrayerAtheist ClaimsAtheist ClubHonesty Integrity WordsUnbelieve QuotesHonesty From WithinIntegrity Of A SalesmanDelusional PeopleLose HopeDelusions QuotesDelusional FeelingsDeludeDeluding Oneself
Book:Pearls Of Eternity
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“There is nothing behind the curtains of religions, people put there whatever their imaginations can fathom”

LifeGodReligionFaithSpiritualityBeliefHeavenReligiousExistenceDoubtAtheismMoralityRespectEthicsAtheistBelieverDebateFaith QuotesFaithfulParadiseMeaning Of LifeSelf RespectExistentialismHeavenlyMaterialismAfterlifeGoddessFaith In GodSpirituality QuotesAgnosticGodsFaithfulnessReligious FaithBelief QuotesHeavenly FatherHeaven And HellThere Is No GodAgnosticismHeaven QuotesDoubtfulUnbeliefAtheisticNaturalismReligion And PhiloshophyBelief In GodReligion SpiritualityFaith In YourselfHeaven On EarthUnbelieversThe Great Pearl Of WisdomBelievingSpirituality Vs ReligionDoubtersDoubtsBangambikiFalse GodsAtheistsBelief SystemAtheist QuotesHeavensAtheism QuotesParadise QuotesBeliefs QuotesFear Of GodDoubting MindFaith ReasonHeavenly RewardsDoubtingAtheist ArgumentReligion Vs ScienceDoubts QuotesFaith Vs ReasonAgnosticsHabyarimana BangambikiParadisesSupernaturalismUnbelieverDoubtfulnessSecular EthicsAtheism DefinedDoubtful ThoughtsFalse GodAtheist ArgumentsAtheistic PhilosophyAgnostic QuotesAgnostic AtheismAgnostic QuoteAtheist PhilosophersAtheistic ReligionAgnostic PrayerAtheist ClaimsAtheist ClubUnbelieve Quotes
Book:Pearls Of Eternity
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