Quotes About Existence

Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me.

The mind does not exist unless leagued with the soul

Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me. And therefore three cheers for Nantucket;

The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more.

I pray for peace—for motionlessness—for the feeling of myself, as of some plant, absorbing life without seeking it, and existing without individual sensation

La felicidad busca la luz, por eso juzgamos que el mundo es alegre; pero el dolor se esconde en la soledad, por eso juzgamos que el dolor no existe.

Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air.

Light though thou be, thou leapest out of darkness; but I am darkness leaping out of light, leaping out of thee!

Though neither knows where lie the nameless things of which the mystic sign gives forth such hints; yet with me, as with the colt, somewhere those things must exist. Though in many of its aspects this visible world seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were formed in fright.

It's worth a fellow's while to be born into the world, if only to fall right asleep

Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it.

The great Leviathan is that one creature in the world which must remain unpainted to the last.

remains a part of the universal problem of all things.

Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is as an errand-boy in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power; how then can this one small heart beat; this one small brain think thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that living, and not I.

Wherefore, for all these things, we account the whale immortal in his species, however perishable in his individuality

What things real are there, but imponderable thoughts?

Nic nie istnieje samo w sobie. Je?eli si? ?udzicie, ?e poczucie wygody ogarnia ca?? wasza istot? i ?e stan taki trwa od d?u?szego czasu, wtedy nie mo?na ju? o was powiedzie?, ?e jest wam wygodnie. - Ismael, Moby Dick, Herman Melville

Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me.

Como si el hombre, cuanto más tiempo vinculado a la vida, menos quisiera tener que ver con nada que se parezca a la muerte.

Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me.

immortality is but ubiquity in time); that

This Right Whale I take to have been a Stoic; the Sperm Whale, A Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in his latter years.

Me parece que mi cuerpo no es más que las heces de mi mejor ser. De hecho, que se lleve mi cuerpo quien quiera, que se lo lleve, digo: no es yo. Y por consiguiente, tres hurras por Nantucket, y que vengan cuando quieran el bote desfondado y el cuerpo desfondado, porque ni el propio Júpiter es capaz de desfondarme el alma.

Oh God! that man should be a thing for immortal souls to sieve through!