Quotes About Existence

People do not want immortality,' I continued. 'They simply do not want to die. They want to live, Decantor. They want to feel the ground beneath their feet, see the clouds overhead, love other people, be with them, and think. Nothing more. Everything that has been said beyond that is a lie. An unconscious lie.

Qué te sugirió el concepto de un dios imperfecto? -preguntó de repente, sin apartar la vista del resplandeciente desierto. -No lo sé. Me pareció algo muy, muy acertado, ¿sabes? Es el único Dios en el que estaría dispuesto a creer, un dios cuyo martirio no significa redención, que no pretende salvar a nadie, ni está al servicio de nada, sino que simplemente está.

de la misma manera en que nació la teología que negaba la existencia de Dios, existe ya una golemología que niega mi existencia, y cuyos defensores me consideran una estafa preparada por los informáticos del MIT, que, para ellos, son quienes en secreto programan estas conferencias. Aunque Dios permanece en silencio y yo hablo, no demostraré la autenticidad de mi existencia, ni siquiera mediante milagros, porque incluso estos podrían malinterpretarse.

Il comportamento logico ci abbandona molto prima che la vita stessa e non è cosa rara che l'uomo si comporti senza senso.

la idea de anunciar la poesía de Shakespeare mil años antes de su nacimiento carece de sentido. Pues el autor podía no haber nacido, haber fallecido en la infancia, haber vivido de otra manera y, por tanto, escribir de otra forma; sin embargo, el habla inglesa preveía la existencia misma de la poesía inglesa.

First I thought to fill this void that is I, and thereby dispel its insufferable monotony. So let us think of something, for when we think, behold, there is thought, and naught but our thought has existence.

siempre y en todas partes es lo mismo que nunca y en ningún lugar.

A physicist never thinks that Someone has set the electrons in their orbits for the express purpose of making him, the physicist, rack his brains over orbital configurations.

to Hogarth humanity is a hunchback who, in ignorance of the fact that it is possible not to be hunchbacked, for thousands of years has sought an indication of a Higher Necessity in his hump, because he will accept any theory but the one that says that his deformity is purely accidental, that no one bestowed it upon him as part of a master plan, that it serves absolutely no purpose, for the thing was determined by the twists and turns of anthropogenesis.

It was as if we knew goodness knows how many specimens, whereas in reality there was still only one, which admittedly weighted seventeen billion tons.

Of the two powers, the two categories that take possession of us when we enter the world (from where?), space is by far the less mysterious. . . . Space is, after all, solid, monolithic. . . . Time, on the other hand, is a hostile element, truly treacherous, I would even say against human nature.

Because even if she were able to leave the Station—alive—still, it's only humans that can land on Earth, and humans are defined by their papers.

Los seres humanos no desean la inmortalidad. Lo que quieren es, sencillamente, no morir. Quieren vivir (…) Quieren sentir la tierra bajo sus pies y ver las nubes por encima de su cabeza, amar a otras personas, estar con ellas y pensar en ellas.

Lo que fue y pasó, no existe y es como si jamás hubiera existido, al igual que un pastel que te comiste ayer ya no te sirve para nada. Por eso, si uno logra creer en ello, uno podría inventarse un pasado que no tuvo y sería como si lo hubiera vivido de verdad».

Zum zweiten faszinierte euch das Denken, das so quälend nahe, weil in der Introspektion gegeben ist, und so rätselhaft, weil es sich eurem Zugriff wirksamer entzieht als die Sterne.

Was thinking about consciousness possible? Yet could the process that took place in the ocean be regarded as thought? Is a mountain a very large rock? Is a planet a huge mountain?

People do not want immortality," I continued. "They simply do not want to die. They want to live, Decantor. They want to feel the ground beneath their feet, see the clouds overhead, love other people, be with them, and think. Nothing more. Everything that has been said beyond that is a lie.

Oh, miseria de la existencia humana que oscila eternamente entre la escasez y el exceso!».

Now, ignorant and backward persons will occasionally demand that you show them this configurational space of yours, apparently unaware that electrons, whose existence no one in his right mind would question, also move exclusively in configurational space, their comings and goings fully dependent on curves of probability. Though it is easier not to believe in electrons than in dragons: electrons, at least taken singly, won't try to make a meal of you.

A human being, appearances to the contrary, doesn't create his own purposes. These are imposed by the time he's born into; he may serve them, he may rebel against them, but the object of his service or rebellion comes from the outside.

Someone fond of paradoxes and sufficiently stubborn could go on doubting that the ocean was a living being. But it was impossible to deny the existence of its mind, whatever could be understood by the term. It had become quite clear that it was only too aware of our presence above it…

We know we are just insignificant parts of the universe, but each of us is the entire universe.

Grof, S. 2006. The Ultimate Journey: Consciousness and the Mystery of Death. Ben Lomond, CA: MAPS Publications.

We are only seeking Man. We have no need for other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is. We are searching for an ideal image of our own world: we go in quest of a planet, of a civilization superior of our own but developed on the basis of a prototype of our primeval past. -Snow from Solaris by Stanislaw Lem