Quotes About Existence

In 1979 Susan Sontag wrote, "Today, everything exists to end in a photograph." Today, does everything exist to end online?

Moths and flames, mankind and death--there is little difference.

Perhaps the mere existence of things undone should be a sort of satisfaction in itself, though the idea would appear to be paradoxical. Only one who is long since dead while still seemingly alive does not have many "promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep," and that state of inertness is not to be desired. To the wise advice that we live every day as though it will be our last, we do well to add the admonition to live every day as though we will be on this earth forever.

when the human spirit departs, it takes with it the vital stuffing of life. Then, only the inanimate corpus remains, which is the least of all the things that make us human.

The life sciences contain spiritual values which can never be explained by the materialistic attitude of present day science

Hope can still exist even when rescue is impossible.

In the beginning when the world was young there were a great many thoughts but no such thing as truth. Man made the truths himself and each truth was a composite of a great many vague thoughts.... It was the truths that made the people grotesques. The moment one of the people took one of the truths to himself, called it his truth, and tried to live his life by it, he became a grotesque and the truth he embraced became a falsehood.

With a little gasp he sees himself as merely a leaf blown by the wind through the streets of his village. He knows that in spite of all the stout talk of his fellows he must live and die in uncertainty, a thing blown by winds, a thing destined like corn to wilt in the sun.

From being quite sure of himself and his future he becomes not at all sure. If he be an imaginative boy a door is torn open and for the first time he looks out upon the world, seeing, as though they marched in procession before him, the countless figures of men who before his time have come out of nothingness into the world, lived their lives and again disappeared into nothingness. The sadness of sophistication has come to the boy.

In the beginning when the world was young there were a great many thoughts but no such thing as a truth. Man made the truths himself and each truth was a composite of a great many vague thoughts. It was the truths that made the people grotesques. The moment one of the people took one of the truths to himself, called it his truth, and tried to live his life by it, he became a grotesque and the truth he embraced became a falsehood.

Many people must live and die alone, even in Winesburg.

The tools to crush modern slavery exist, but the political will is lacking.

It is a great misunderstanding to want to discover something worth living for.

tell them that both optimists and pessimists die in the end, but the optimist leads a hopeful and happy existence while the pessimist spends his days cynical and downtrodden. It is too high a price to pay. Besides, optimism is a prerequisite of progress. It provides the inspiration we need, especially in hard times.

We spoke often of Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement, who argued that the future of the Jewish people depended on the existence of a Jewish state, one bonded together not just by religion but by language and nationality. "Let them give us sovereignty over a piece of the earth's surface, just sufficient for the needs of our people. Then we will do the rest.

When the gravity of death first touched me, I'd found preoccupation with the minutiae of daily life meaningless. If we ultimately die, and turn to dust in the ground, should it ever truly upset us if the floor hasn't been swept quite recently enough.

Because death is the only reality, and I'm a realist.

Existence along is not a success. It is a lot more. Do more than exist-Live. Do more than touch-Feel. Do more than look-Observe. Do more than read-Absorb. Do more than hear-Listen. Do more than listen-Understand. -John H. Rhoades

Pain was simply pain, pleasure was simply pleasure; for him they were no longer part of the cycle of suffering.

Right here" is the reality of interdependent origination, the reality in which everything, including human beings, exists within the vast network of causes and conditions.

When D?gen says in Sh?b?genz? Sh?ji (Life and Death) that "life and death is Buddha's Life," he means our life in samsara is nothing other than nirvana.

If rebirth exists, that is all right: I will simply try to continue practicing everything good and refrain from everything bad through my next life. If there is no rebirth, I will have nothing to do after my death and I will have no need to consider my practice. This was my view of rebirth for most of my life as a Buddhist.

The present moment is the only reality we experience because the past is already gone and the future has not yet come.

Not the power to remember, but its very opposite, the power to forget, is a necessary condition for our existence.