Quotes About Existence

Every new born being indeed comes fresh and blithe into the new existence, and enjoys it as a free gift: but there is, and can be, nothing freely given. It's fresh existence is paid for by the old age and death of a worn out existence which has perished, but which contained the indestructible seed out of which the new existence has arisen: they are one being.

Here is the key to existence. Are you listening? Here is the key to existence; when I tell you this you will know how to run your lives. You will know if you have been living life to the full, and if you realize you haven't been, you will know immediately how to correct that state of affairs. As soon as I tell you the key to existence. Are you ready? Are you ready for me to tell you?... Always breathe. That's the basis of life, breathing. That's basically the basis. If you don't breathe, you die.

There is exactly the same degree of possibility and likelihood of the existence of the Christian God as there is of the existence of the Homeric god. I cannot prove that either the Christian god or the Homeric gods do not exist, but I do not think that their existence is an alternative that is sufficiently probable to be worth serious consideration.

If God were to exist for the entire humanity, he would be profoundly vile, as he allows the existence of unfathomable sin, stupidity, madness, and misery for no reason than his own despicable enjoyment. God exists though, not for all humanity, but for a one chosen man - a philosopher - who is bound to answer the greatest philosophical question, the question about the nature of the questioner's existence, which progressively quenches the divine vanity.

Prior to Valentinus, those who follow Valentinus had no existence. Nor did those from Marcion exist before Marcion. Nor, in short, did any of those malignant-minded people, whom I have listed above, have any existence previous to the initiators and inventors of their perversity.

On my view there is no net benefit to coming into existence and thus coming into existence is never worth its costs.

Who is able to paint the existence of a dog as Picasso paints the existence of a cubic shape?

. . . since being a Jew not only means that I bear within me a catastrophe that occurred yesterday and cannot be ruled out for tomorrow, it is-beyond being a duty-also fear. Every morning when I get up I can read the Auschwitz number on my forearm, something that touches the deepest and most closely intertwined roots of my existence; indeed I am not even sure if this is not my entire existence. Then I feel approximately as I did back then when I got a taste of the first blow from a policeman's fist. Every day anew I lose my trust in the world.

You've always lived a life of pretense, not a real life-- a simulated existence, not a genuine existence. Everything about you, everything you are, has always been pretense, never genuine, never real.

All essential knowledge relates to existence, or only such knowledge as has an essential relationship to existence is essential knowledge.

Existence is movement. Action is movement. Existence is defined by the rhythm of forces in natural balance. (...) It is our appreciation for dance that allows us to see clearly the rhythms of nature and to take natural rhythm to a plane of well-organised art and culture.

Non-thinking is an act of annihilation, a wish to negate existence, an attempt to wipe out reality. But existence exists; reality is not to be wiped out, it will merely wipe out the wiper

Leave your existence to existence, stop caring for yourself so much and let the universe care for you; it is the best mother.

Space, time, mass, and energy originate from Chaos, have their being in Chaos, and through the agency of the aether are moved by Chaos into the multiple forms of existence. Some of the various densities of the aether have only a partial or probablistic differentiation into existence, and are somewhat indeterminate in space and time. In the same way that mass exists as a curvature in space-time, extending with a gradually diminishing force to infinity that we recognize as gravity, so do all events, particularly events involving the human mind, send ripples through all creation.

Religion is the servant of the vanishing; science, of the existence! Disappearance belongs to the chaos and the Devil; existence, to the God!

Just as humans have a prior right to existence over dogs by virtue of being more highly evolved and having a superior consciousness, so women have a prior right to existence over men. The elimination of any male is, therefore, a righteous and good act, an act highly beneficial to women as well as an act of mercy.

Just as man's physical existence was liberated when he grasped that 'nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed', so his consciousness will be liberated when grasps that nature, to be apprehended, must be obeyed - that the rules of cognition must be derived from the nature of existence and the nature, the identity, of his cognitive faculty.

The pleasure and the love of God for His creatures constitute the original state. His pleasure and love are the means by which He has brought His creatures into existence and are the cause of that bringing into existence. He who knows that he possesses neither being nor act rediscovers himself in that original state of pleasure and divine love.

If the spiritual values of human existence at its highest term of development and achievement do not endure, amidst all the changes and chances of this mortal universe, there seems to be no stable or coherent meaning in existence. Then the universe is irrational--indeed it is no universe at all.

A small nation, faced with the denial of its sovereignty — indeed, of its very existence — reminded us that the price of freedom is high but never so costly as the loss of freedom.

Because all the societies, all the nations, all the cultures, have taken it for granted that the individuals exist for them, not vice-versa. To me, just the opposite is the case: the society exists for the individual, the culture exists for the individual, the nation exists for the individual. Everything can be sacrificed, but the individual cannot be sacrificed for anything. Individuality is the very flowering of existence - nothing is higher than it. But no culture, no society, no civilization is ready to accept a simple truth.

For paradise we long. For perfection we were made...This longing is the source of the hunger and dissatisfaction that mark our lives...This longing makes our loves and friendships possible, and so very unsatisfactory. The hunger is for...nothing less than perfect communion with the...one in whom all the fragments of our scattered existence come together...we must not stifle this longing. It is a holy dissatisfaction. Such dissatisfaction is not a sickness to be healed, but the seed of a promise to be fulfilled...The only death to fear is the death of settling for something less.

You see how it is godlike to love the being of someone. Your existence is a delight to us. I hope you never have to long for a child as I did, but oh, what a splendid thing it has been that you came finally, and what a blessing to enjoy you now for almost seven years.

The world is a construct of our sensations, perceptions, memories. It is convenient to regard it as existing objectively on its own. But it certainly does not become manifest by its mere existence.

Emotions are lovely. Even if they fall to the negative for a time. The sun will rise again another day. The sadness perhaps never forgotten, but a new day enjoyed in another way. A way that could not have been but for the sadness’s existence.

And now the announcement of Watson and Crick about DNA. This is for me the real proof of the existence of God.

Religion is but a desperate attempt to find an escape from the truly dreadful situation in which we find ourselves. Here we are in this wholly fantastic universe with scarcely a clue as to whether our existence has any real significance. No wonder then that many people feel the need for some belief that gives them a sense of security, and no wonder that they become very angry with people like me who say that this is illusory.

The practice of yoga allows us to become more conscious of our own physical existence and how significant we really are.

Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.

The Wise Man believes profoundly in silence - the sign of a perfect equilibrium. Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind and spirit. The man who preserves his selfhood ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence - not a leaf, as it were, astire on the tree, not a ripple upon the surface of the shinning pool-his, in the mind of the unlettered sage, is the ideal attitude and conduct of life. Silence is the cornerstone of character.

It isn't by getting out of the world that we become enlightened, but by getting into the world…by getting so tuned in that we can ride the waves of our existence and never get tossed because we become the waves.

Philosophers have done wisely when they have told us to cultivate our reason rather than our feelings, for reason reconciles us to the daily things of existence; our feelings teach us to yearn after the far, the difficult, the unseen.

Early rising not only gives us more life in the same number of years, but adds, likewise, to their number; and not only enables us to enjoy more of existence in the same time, but increases also the measure.

The greatest truths are the simplest things in the world, simple as your own existence.

In the struggle for existence, it is only on those who hang on for ten minutes after all is hopeless, that hope begins to dawn.

The purpose of life is to stay alive. Watch any animal in nature--all it tries to do is stay alive. It doesn't care about beliefs or philosophy. Whenever any animal's behavior puts it out of touch with the realities of its existence, it becomes exinct.

The science which teacheth arts and handicrafts is merely science for the gaining of a living; but the science which teacheth deliverance from worldly existence, is not that the true science?

In a certain sense you deny the existence of this world. You explain life as a state of rest, a state of rest in motion.

For all problems of existence are essentially problems of harmony.

Nothing that can be known has existence in itself. It depends on a knower. The knower is consciousness.

It is impossible to describe a landscape so validly as to exclude all other descriptions, for no one can see the landscape in all its aspects at the same time, and no single view can prevent the existence and validity of other equally possible views.

Life and Jah are one in the same. Jah is the gift of existence. I am in some way eternal, I will never be duplicated. The singularity of every man and woman is Jah's gift. What we struggle to make of it is our sole gift to Jah. The process of what that struggle becomes, in time, the Truth.

Love is the binding force on every level of existence.

Our ideas are the offspring of our senses; we are not more able to create the form of a being we have not seen, without retrospect to one we know, than we are able to create a new sense. He whose fancy has conceived an idea of the most beautiful form must have composed it from actual existence.

... keep practicing. After a great deal of practice, we no longer think about all the necessary movements we must make; they become part of our existence. Before reaching that stage, however, you must practice and repeat. And if that's not enough, you must practice and repeat some more.

I'm a pretty boring guy. Compared to Ashton Kutcher, I live a really boring existence.

The spiritual life is not a life before, after, or beyond our everyday existence. No, the spiritual life can only be real when it is lived in the midst of the pains and joys of the here and now.

The true scientific understanding of the nature of existence is so utterly fascinating; how could you not want people to share it? Carl Sagan, I think, said 'when you're in love, you want to tell the world.' And who, on understanding a scientific view of reality, would not, as it were, fall in love and want to tell the world.