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Existentialism Quotes

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Existentialism Quotes

“Man's rare deliriums have become state religion. That the abyss of Christianity has not completely corrupted man is to me the only proof of his vocation for metaphysics. But man can no longer endure the terror of final questions. Christianity has legalized anxiety, and has kept man under pressure to such an extent that a few thousand years of relaxation will be needed to revive a being devastated by the invasion of so many heavens.”

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Book:Tears and Saints
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“When Daryl and I began a new life together at Mulberry Hill I knew as everyone knows that our earthly stay is short but it was not yet a truth engraved on my heart as it is today. Vita brevis... just words written up on a wall. Watch your step. No smoking. Life is short. Life at this moment seemed as infinite as the quiet evening sky and I was filled with a sense of continuity of all beautiful things.”

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Book:Time Without Clocks
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“I tell the squad a joke: "Stop me if you're heard this. There was a Marine of nuts and bolts, half robot--weird but true--whose every move was cut from pain as though from stone. His stoney little hide had been crushed and broken. But he just laughed and said, 'I've been crushed and broken before.' And sure enough, he had the heart of a bear. His heart functioned for weeks after it had been diagnosed by doctors. His heart weighed half a pound. His heart pumped seven hundred thousand gallons of warm blood through one hundred thousand miles of veins, working hard--hard enough in twelve hours to lift one sixty-five ton boxcar one foot off the deck. He said. The world would not waste the heart of a bear, he said. On his clean blue pajamas many medals hung. He was a walking word of history, in the shop for a few repairs. He took it on the chin and was good. One night in Japan his life came out of his body--black--like a question mark. If you can keep your head while others are losing theirs perhaps you have misjudged the situation. Stop me if you've heard this...”

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Book:The Short-Timers
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“I Am My Teacher (Sonnet 1234) I teach myself when I need to learn something, I correct myself when I make mistakes. No two year old shaped as 40, 50, 60 or 70, Has the maturity to provide me moral guidance. I taught myself electronics when I fell for it, I taught myself music in my youthful high. I taught myself languages in sheer obsession, I taught myself aeronautics when I wanted to fly. Critics mail, I should add "biggest ego" to my bio, I thank them all for an astounding revelation. If I actually behaved befitting my capacity, Half your legends will lose their reputation. You only see the tip of the ice-berg, Fullness of the Himalayas you'll never see. I chose to put many of my passions aside, One path, one mission - one answer to calamity.”

LearningGeniusHumanitarianExistentialismGrowth MindsetSelf EducationSelf CorrectionAutodidactScientist PoetAutodidactism
Book:Insan Himalayanoğlu: It's Time to Defect
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“I taught myself electronics when I fell for it, I taught myself music in my youthful high. I taught myself languages in sheer obsession, I taught myself aeronautics when I wanted to fly. You only see the tip of the ice-berg, Fullness of the Himalayas you'll never see. I chose to put many of my passions aside, One path, one mission - one answer to calamity.”

LearningGeniusHumanitarianExistentialismEngineeringGrowth MindsetSelf EducationAutodidactScientist PoetAutodidactism
Book:Insan Himalayanoğlu: It's Time to Defect
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“Where am I asking others to take responsibility for my life? Let's face it - we would all love to be taken care of. We all are recovering children who project the dynamics of intrapsychic parent onto an institution, an ideology ...Growing up is ever more difficult because it requires letting go of old expectations of rescue and redemption. We are it; this is it; this is as good as it gets, and we better deal with it.”

ResponsibilityGrowing UpPsychologySelf HelpTraumaExistentialismHuman Development
Book:Creating a Life: Finding Your Individual Path
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“We dont know much about gods characteristics. However. We can deduce specific traits by observing gods creation. For starters, creativity. There is also a kind of seriousness, with firm natural laws. Serious or not, god has a special kind of humor. And since the world is filled with drama, god might not care about us to the level that we tell ourselves, either that or god, just like us, search for entertainment. Sadly many other emotions and traits are forever left to our imagination.”

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Author:Monaristw
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“But today’s society is characterized by achievement orientation, and consequently it adores people who are successful and happy and, in particular, it adores the young. It virtually ignores the value of all those who are otherwise, and in so doing blurs the decisive difference between being valuable in the sense of dignity and being valuable in the sense of usefulness. If one is not cognizant of this difference and holds that an individual’s value stems only from his present usefulness, then, believe me, one owes it only to personal inconsistency not to plead for euthanasia along the lines of Hitler’s program, that is to say, ‘mercy’ killing of all those who have lost their social usefulness, be it because of old age, incurable illness, mental deterioration, or whatever handicap they may suffer. Confounding the dignity of man with mere usefulness arises from conceptual confusion that in turn may be traced back to the contemporary nihilism transmitted on many an academic campus and many an analytical couch.”

DignityMeaningExistentialismNihilismUsefulnessHuman Dignity
Book:Man's Search for Meaning
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“Equality begins in the mind. If in our own mind we have a pedestal for the billionaire and royalty, and no place for the janitor and the bartender, then even a thousand policy reforms won't be able to equalize such a cockeyed, internally broken society.”

Life LessonsDignitySocial JusticeEqualityExistentialismSocial ReformRoyal FamilyEconomic DisparityBillionairesMonarchy Aristocracy
Book:High Voltage Habib: Gospel of Undoctrination
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“You are the gospel you need to read, You are the path you need to walk. You are the torch you need to light, You are the voice you need to talk. You are the sight you need to see, You are the thirst you need to quench. You are the warmth you need to wear, You are the drought you need to drench. You are the muck you need to mend, You are the wrong you need to right. You are the storm you need to brave, You are the fate you need to write.”

JusticeConsciousnessDestinyAwarenessSelf RealizationExistentialismHumanistBraveheartBe The ChangeSelf Correction
Book:Dervis Vadisi: 100 Promissory Sonnets
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“You are the gospel you need to read, You are the path you need to walk. You are the torch you need to light, You are the voice you need to talk. You are the muck you need to mend, You are the wrong you need to right. You are the storm you need to brave, You are the fate you need to write.”

JusticeConsciousnessDestinyAwarenessSelf RealizationExistentialismHumanistBraveheartBe The ChangeSelf Correction
Book:Dervis Vadisi: 100 Promissory Sonnets
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“I thought of the fate of Descartes’ famous formulation: man as ‘master and proprietor of nature.’ Having brought off miracles in science and technology, this ‘master and proprietor’ is suddenly realizing that he owns nothing and is master neither of nature (it is vanishing, little by little, from the planet), nor of History (it has escaped him), nor of himself (he is led by the irrational forces of his soul). But if God is gone and man is no longer master, then who is master? The planet is moving through the void without any master. There it is, the unbearable lightness of being.”

GodHumanityNatureDestinyHistoryModernMeaning Of LifeExistentialismDescartesEnd Of HistorySelf Determinism
Book:The Art of the Novel
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“He walked into the spotlight. The crowd cheered. He waited. And then, with no warning, he let out a single, clear laugh. It came out of him like a floodgate bursting. High-pitched, joyous, real. He laughed until his face crumpled, until his knees gave way, until he collapsed to the floor. They thought it was the act. They laughed harder. Some stood. Some applauded. A child shouted, “Do it again!” But Bobo lay still. His rubber nose squeaked against the stage floor. His heart didn’t. The laughter swelled like an ocean, unknowing, unrelenting. The curtain dropped. Behind it, a small notebook fell from his jacket. It opened to a single scribbled line: “The joke was me.”

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Book:Entropy in Love and Other Errors: Absurdist Short Stories about Meaning, Glitches, and Goodbyes
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“- ბატონებო! თქვენ წინაშეა ჰარი ჰალერი. მას ბრალად ედება მაგიური თეატრის ბოროტად გამოყენება. როცა მან ჩვენი მშვენიერი სურათების გალერეა ეგრეთ წოდებულ სინამდვილესთან გააიგივა და გათქვიფა, ხოლო სარკეში არეკლილი გოგონა ასეთივე არეკლილი დანით სასიკვდილოდ განგმირა, ამ საქციელით მან მარტოოდენ ჩვენი მაღალი ხელოვნება როდი შეურაცხყო! იგი არაიუმორისტული გზით შეეცადა ჩვენი თეატრი თვითმკვლელობის იარაღად გამოეყენებინა! ამიტომაც სასამართლომ ჰარელს მარადიული სიცოცხლის განაჩენი გამოუტანა. შემდგომ ამისა, მას თორმეტი საათის განმავლობაში ეკრძალება ჩვენს თეატრში შემოსვლა . ამასთან ერთად, ძალაში რჩება ბრალდებულისათვის გამოტანილი ერთჯერადი დაცინვის განაჩენიც. ბატონებო! გთხოვთ, აღასრულოთ! ერთი, ორი, სამი! მესამე თვლაზე ყველა იქ მყოფი თვინიერად ახარხარდა, ეს ციური დასის სიცილი იყო , ადამიანის ყურისათვის აუტანელი, არაამქვეყნიური და შემზარავი.”

Self DiscoveryExistentialismMagical Theatre
Author:Hermann Hesse
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“The insistent drums were an unwelcome reminder of the existence of another world, wholly autonomous, with its own necessities and patterns. The message they were beating out, over and over, was for her; it was saying, not precisely that she did not exist but rather that it did not matter whether she existed or not, that her presence was of no consequence to the rest of the cosmos. It was a sensation that suddenly paralyzed her with dread. There had never been any question of her “mattering”; it went without saying that she mattered, because she was important to herself. But what was the part of her to which she mattered?”

Meaning Of LifeExistentialismAutonomySubjectivityMessageThe OtherObserverDrums
Book:The Spider's House
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“Politics always puts forward Ideas: Nation, Empire, Union, Economy, etc. But none of these forms has value in itself; it has it only insofar as it involves concrete individuals. If a nation can assert itself proudly only to the detriment of its members, if a union can be created only to the detriment of those it is trying to unite, the nation or the union must be rejected. We repudiate all idealisms, mysticisms, etcetera which prefer a Form to man himself.”

EthicsExistentialismAutonomy
Book:The Ethics of Ambiguity
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“I didn't know that freedom is not a reward or a decoration that is celebrated with champagne. Nor yet a gift, a box of dainties to make you lick your chops. Oh, no! It's a chore, on the contrary, and a long-distance race, quite solitary and very exhausting. No champagne, no friends raising their glasses as they look at you affectionately. Alone in a forbidding room, alone in the prisoner's box before the judges, and alone to decide in the face of oneself or in the face of others' judgement. At the end of all freedom is a court sentence; that's why freedom is too heavy to bear, especially when you're down with a fever, or are distressed, or love nobody.”

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Book:The fall
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“I do not mean to imply by this that a man can determine just what his world or his life will be like. A man, after all, is only a man. He stands somewhere between absolute freedom on the one hand, and total helplessness on the other. All of his important decisions must be made on the basis of insufficient data. It is enough if a man accepts his freedom, takes his best shot, does what he can, faces the consequences of his acts, and makes no excuses. It may not be fair that a man gets to have total responsibility for his own life without total control over it, but it seems to me that for good or for bad, that's just the way it is.”

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Book:If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients
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