Quotes About Existence

On the whole I am splendidly equipped for this great adventure we call human existence.

This drew frowns from Steve, still smarting from the rejection of his cappuccino. The menu stated clearly in small print that the Economy Dinner for one was not to be shared. Steve, I knew, took these issues seriously. He worked 18 hours a day, seven days a week, and consequently saw life as a grim struggle for existence. Oddly, I hardly work at all, yet share a similar philosophy.

Language is the charnel house of man.

We are always human and we should never forget the burden of being only human

when all is said and done, our own existence is an experiment of nature, an attempt at a new synthesis.

Life is a battleground. It always has been, and always will be; and if it were not so, existence would come to an end.

The sad truth is that man's real life consists of a complex of inexorable opposites—day and night, birth and death, happiness and misery, good and evil. We are not even sure that one will prevail against the other, that good will overcome evil, or joy defeat pain. Life is a battleground. It always has been and always will be; and if it were not so, existence would come to an end.

The meaning of my existence is that life has addressed a question to me. Or, conversely, I myself am a question which is addressed to the world, and I must communicate my answer, for otherwise I am dependent upon the world's answer.

The secret is that only that which can destroy itself is truly alive.

I indignantly answered, "Do you call light what we men call the worst darkness? Do you call day night?" To this my soul spoke a word that roused my anger, "My light is not of this world." I cried, "I know of no other world!" The soul answered, "Should it not exist because you know nothing of it?

The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being. It may even be assumed that just as the unconscious affects us, so the increase in our consciousness affects the unconscious.

In general, the heart seems to have a more reliable memory for what benefits the psyche than does the head, which has a rather unhealthy tendeny to lead an 'abstract' existence, and easily forgets that its consciousness is snuffed out the moment the heart fails its duty.

at this moment I came upon myself. Previously I had existed, too, but everything had merely happened to me. Now I happened to myself. Now I knew: I am myself now, now I exist. Previously I had been willed to do this and that; now I willed.

One cannot live from anything except what one is.

It is the growth of consciousness which we must thank for the existence of problems; they are the dubious gift of civilization. It is just man's turning away from instinct—his opposing himself to instinct—that creates consciousness.

The highest truth is one and the same with the absurd.

Not your thinking, but your being, is distinctiveness. Therefore not after difference, ye think it, must ye strive; but after YOUR OWN BEING. At bottom, therefore, there is only one striving, namely, the striving after your own being.

But we must not forget that only a very few people are artists in life; that the art of life is the most distinguished and rarest of all the arts. Who ever succeeded in draining the whole cup with grace?

the soul said, "Is this what you think it means to be human?

Real life is always tragic and those who do not know this have never lived.

theologians are different in this respect, at any rate; at least they are sure that God exists, even though they make contradictory statements about Him.

man is indispensable for the completion of creation; that, in fact, he himself is the second creator of the world, who alone has given to the world its objective existence

An intelligent man will make his adaptation to the world through his intelligence, and not in the manner of a sixth-rate pugilist, even though now and then, in a fit of rage, he may make use of his fists. In the struggle for existence and adaptation everyone instinctively uses his most developed function, which thus becomes the criterion of his habitual reactions.