Quotes About Existence

If we suppose for a moment that space exists, and that God placed the world in it, why did He place it in the spot it occupies instead of any other spot, all space being alike, and no one point being preferable to any other point? God acted without having a reason, for if space is, His choice of a place was arbitrary; but God cannot act irrationally. Therefore space is not.

God, then, did not find in Himself any reason for creating. If the reason for creation were to be found in the nature of the Absolute, there would be no creation. The existence of the world is therefore irrational, for what can be more irrational than the idea of something added to perfection? Nevertheless the world exists. Reality is not rational, it is superior to reason.

If reason has never been able to found a religion which will bear criticism, it is because of this, that it begins with an undemonstrable hypothesis and ends in an hypothesis. Consequently, all attempts to prove the existence of God are convincing only to those already convinced.

If meditation be the affirmation of the existence of God--and meditation need not be lengthy, one rapid flash of thought is sufficient--to neglect it is practically to deny God.

Time commences with mutable things; if they perish, it perishes with them.

Man and God being placed face to face, one as contingent, the other as absolute, the contingent lives as contingent and the absolute as absolute. To live as absolute, is to be at once the power and principle of life; to live as contingent is to live as effect, without ever being able to live as principle.

God is not a person in the human sense, which is exclusive of other personalities. He is immutable, all-inclusive, absolutely free, intelligent and loving, that is, He is personal, because the world exists, and by its existence He becomes relative.

Evil is the rejection of the infinite for the finite.

The rational conception of God is that He is; nothing more. To give Him an attribute is to make Him a relative God.

The free creature can alone say of itself "I am." In a word, the free creature is the only one with veritable being.

The only knowledge man has of his thoughts is by their expression, consequently, every material being that can be conceived by the mind exists or can exist . He may imagine what is incongruous, as the sphinx. But his imagination is a piecing together of realities, not a creation out of nothing.

God's existence escapes demonstration; it is idle to ask reason to prove what is beyond its scope, for reason is the faculty of dealing with the finite.

Prayer is the assertion of the two personalities, the personality of God and that of the suppliant. It is the affirmation of the existence of a link uniting the two individualities.

If we could only remember in life that the form which we call ourselves is not our real immortal self at all, we would not give it such an exaggerated importance, though we would nevertheless take needful care of it.

Do not fear death; but stay on earth as long as you can.

Principle I: We Are Either Now Here or Nowhere

Fairies don't live long, but they are so little that a short time seems a good while to them.

The very smell of tobacco is abominable, for one cannot get it out of the curtains, and there is little pleasure in existence unless the curtains are all right.

Immortality is only for the gods," he whispered. "I wonder how they can stand it.

How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.

We simply do not understand our place in the universe and have not the courage to admit it.

No culture has yet solved the dilemma each has faced with the growth of a conscious mind: how to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in all life, when one finds darkness not only in one's own culture but within oneself.

What's it like to go looking for your soul, only to learn you never had one to begin with?

Yes, pain meant life. But the symmetric property did not apply; Life did not mean pain.