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Existence Quotes
"To him, they looked like shadows that his wife had left behind. Size 7 shadows of his wife hung there in long rows, layer upon layer, as if someone had gathered and hung up samples of the infinite possibilities (or at least the theoretically infinite possibilities) implied in the existence of a human being."
292
"The existence of law is one thing; its merit or demerit is another."
66
"Some people live as though they are already dead. There are people moving around us who are consumed by their past, terrified of their future, and stuck in their anger and jealousy. They are not alive; they are just walking corpses."
66
"That whose existence is necessary must necessarily be one essence."
58
"Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve."
58
"They dig holes from time to time,' the Colonel explains. 'It is probably for them what chess is for me. It has no special meaning, does not transport them anywhere. All of us dig at our own pure holes. We have nothing to achieve by our activities, nowhere to get to. Is there not something marvelous about this? We hurt no one and no one gets hurt. No victory, no defeat."
54
"Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom."
53
"Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful."
53
"Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon."
49
"Man, in his animal capacity, is qualified to subsist in every climate."
47
"What we want is to be noticed by the universe, to have the universe give a shit what happens to us- not the collective idea of sentient life but each of us as individuals."
47
"Cultivation of mind should be the ultimate aim of human existence."
47
"Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself."
47
"This is an orchestration for an event. For a dance in fact. The participants will be apprised of their roles at the proper time. For now it is enough that they have arrived. As the dance is the thing with which we are concerned and contains complete within itself its own arrangement and history and finale there is no necessity that the dancers contain these things within themselves as well. In any event the history of all is not the history of each nor indeed the sum of those histories and none here can finally comprehend the reason for his presence for he has no way of knowing even in what the event consists. In fact, were he to know he might well absent himself and you can see that that cannot be any part of the plan if plan there be."
46
"The frailty of everything revealed at last. Old and troubling issues resolved into nothingness and night. The last instance of a thing takes the class with it. Turns out the light and is gone. Look around you. Ever is a long time. But the boy knew what he knew. That ever is no time at all."
46
"Imagine being sentient but not alive. Seeing and even knowing, but not alive. Just looking out. Recognizing but not being alive. A person can die and still go on. Sometimes what looks out at you from a person's eyes maybe died back in childhood."
45
"Living, there is no happiness in that. Living: carrying one's painful self through the world.But being, being is happiness. Being: Becoming a fountain, a fountain on which the universe falls like warm rain."
44
"Homo sapiens, the only creature endowed with reason, is also the only creature to pin its existence on things unreasonable."
43
"Everything that has existed, lingers in the Eternity."
43
"Your paradigm is so intrinsic to your mental process that you are hardly aware of its existence, until you try to communicate with someone with a different paradigm."
41
"Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness... and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him."
41
"Nothingness lies coiled in the heart of being - like a worm."
41
"I pick my favourite quotations and store them in my mind as ready armour, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle of this turbulent existence."
40
"It is living and ceasing to live that are imaginary solutions. Existence is elsewhere."
40
"Myth expresses in terms of the world - that is, of the other world or the second world - the understanding that man has of himself in relation to the foundation and the limit of his existence."
40
"To be is the greatest paradox of life facing death."
40
"Let's say that it belong to me as much as it belongs to anyone alive today. If I am, strictly speaking, living. The old word was undead, you know, but aren't all living things undead. I dislike imprecision."
39
"I don't need anyone to rectify my existence. The most profound relationship we will ever have is the one with ourselves."
39
"The human psyche shows that each individual is an extension of all of existence."
39
"People cannot escape the looming specter of a deathwatch and the imposing emptiness that comes with the termination of their existence. People resist going silently into the night. We seek to howl at the moon and make known our search for a diagrammatic overture that voices our unquantifiable existence."
39
"Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality."
39
"If it has a name or a description it has or will exist at some point in time."
38
"Death is every mortal's life to be alive!"
38
"Love is not an Emotion, It is your very Existence."
37
"Philosophy, most broadly viewed, is the critical survey of existence from the standpoint of value."
37
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