Quotes About Existence

Who am I? Why am I here? How then shall I live? These are questions to which the answer is prescriptive not descriptive, substantive not procedural. The result is that the twenty-first century has left us with a maximum of choice and a minimum of meaning.

Science does not yield meanings, nor does it prove the absence of meanings. The meaning of a system lies outside the system. Therefore the meaning of the universe lies outside the universe.

Homo sapiens, discovering God singular and alone, discovered the human being singular and alone. There is no greater dignity than that

If God created the world, then his existence must be compatible with the world. If he created human intelligence, his existence must not be an insult to the intelligence. If the greatest gift he gave humanity was freedom, then religion could not establish itself by coercion.

God is beyond time, but human beings live within time. We cannot take ourselves out of, say, the twenty-first century and project ourselves a thousand years from now. Inescapably, we live in the now, not eternity.

the recent novel by his wife Rebecca Goldstein, entitled 36 Arguments for the Existence of God, subtitled A Work of Fiction). The

Faith in Judaism is not about ontology (what exists?) or epistemology (what can we know?) but about relationships – about the people with whom we converse.

I thought about all of the things that everyone ever says to each other, and how everyone is going to die, whether it's in a millisecond, or days, or months, or 76.5 years, if you were just born. Everything that's born has to die, which means our lives are like skyscrapers. The smoke rises at different speeds, but they're all on fire, and we're all trapped.

We're all clichés, all following scripts that have been written and played out long before we landed the role.

The flower is not evil because it blooms where it does. It simply exists. As do the fish in this pool, and the bird on the cliff, and you, and I.

We're all immortal until we die.

Outside has everything. Whenever I think of a thing now like skis or fireworks or islands or elevators or yo-yos, I have to remember they're real, they're actually happening in Outside all together. It makes my head tired. And people too, firefighters teachers burglars babies saints soccer players and all sorts, they're all really in Outside. I'm not there, though, me and Ma, we're the only ones not there. Are we still real?

When we can't dream any longer we die.

Molto spesso l'attività intellettuale della donna si manifesta in un rimuginare il passato chiedendosi che cosa nella propria o nell'altrui esistenza avrebbe dovuto essere fatto diversamente, oppure nel costruire ossessivamente degli artificiosi nessi causali. Questo atteggiamento mentale viene di solito definito pensiero, mentre in realtà non è altro che una forma inutile e improduttiva di attività intellettuale, una specie di autotortura.

The British philosopher and novelist Raymond Tallis, writing in the New Scientist (January 2010), commented on how the 'material world, far from being the noisy, colourful, smelly place we live in, is colourless, silent, full of odourless molecules, atoms, particles, whose nature and behaviour is best described mathematically'.

In the fleeting window of just 24 hours, humanity has witnessed the pinnacle of greatness. Time, the ultimate arbiter of our existence, holds within it the potential for unparalleled achievement. The only obstacle standing in the way of your own greatness lies in the manner in which you choose to allocate this most precious resource.

chi siamo, che cosa fa sì che siamo noi e nessun altro.

Mais je veux me rappeler. Je veux me rappeler celui que j'ai été et que sont beaucoup d'autres.

La maladie, l'approche terrifiante de la mort lui ont appris qui il était, et savoir qui on est — Étienne dirait plutôt : où on est —, cela s'appelle être guéri de la névrose.

Je n'ai jamais été aussi libre, jamais la vie n'a été aussi belle. Je suis un assassin, j'ai l'image la plus basse qui puisse exister dans la société, mais c'est plus facile à supporter que les vingts ans de mensonge d'avant.

Isn't it better to die while you're alive than to live the life of a dead person?

A sinistra c'è l'Ombra ma c'è anche la gioia pura, e forse non può esserci gioia pura senza Ombra, e allora la pena di vivere con l'Ombra.

Essa dà, secondo me, un senso concreto, vicino, familiare, all'al di là:

La sua persona è così trasparente che la si può confondere con la Presenza.