Quotes About Existence

Suffering ceases to be suffering when it finds meaning

Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness.

Niego tajantemente que la búsqueda de un sentido, o la duda de si existe ese sentido, proceda o sea el resultado de una enfermedad. La frustración existencial en sí misma no es patológica ni patogénica.

but what never can be ruled out is the unavoidability of suffering. In accepting this challenge to suffer bravely, life has a meaning up to the last moment, and it retains this

Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual. These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment. Thus it is impossible to define the meaning of life in a general way.

Seorang manusia yang menyadari tanggung jawabnya terhadap manusia lain yang menunggunya dengan kasih sayang, atau tanggung jawabnya terhadap pekerjaan yang belum selesai, tidak akan pernah bisa mengabaikan hidupnya. Dia tahu "mengapa" ia hidup, dan akan mampu menghadapi "bagaimana" dalam bentuk apa pun.

there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.

The, world is not, as a great existential philosopher has seen it, a manuscript written in a code we have to decipher. No, the world is no manuscript which we are asked to decipher, but cannot; it is, rather, a record which we have to dictate ourselves.

There are two main features and traits which characterize and constitute human existence. The first is self-transcendence—the fact that man is always reaching beyond himself, reaching out for meaning to fulfill, for other beings to encounter. The second is self-detachment, the intrinsically human capacity to rise above the level of somatic and psychic data, above the plane within which an animal being moves and to which an animal being is bound.

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked.

Some people say that a man dying in a sudden accident sees his whole life flash by, like a fantastically fast movie. To stay with this concept, one might say that in death, man has become the movie himself. He now 'is' his life as he lived it, he is his own life history as it happened to him, as good as he has created it. Thus, he is his own heaven and his own hell.

Men, in general, misunderstand the meaning of death. When the alarm clock goes off in the morning and frightens us from our dreams, we regard this awakening as a terrifying intrusion upon our dream world and do not realize that the alarm arouses us to our real existence, our day world. Do we mortals not act similarly, being frightened when death comes? Do we not also misunderstand that death awakens us to the true reality of ourselves?

But ultimately man can actualize himself only by fulfilling a meaning out there in the world rather than within himself so that self-actualization becomes an effect of "self-transcendence." Being human means relating and being directed to something or someone other than oneself.

What is actually man's concern is not to fulfill himself or to actualize himself but to fulfill meaning and to realize value. And only to the extent to which he fulfills concrete and personal meaning of his own existence will he also fulfill himself. Self-fulfillment occurs by itself; not through intention but as effect.

Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human

Man is ready and willing to shoulder any suffering as soon and as long as he can see a meaning in it.

It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness. Happiness cannot be pursued. It must ensue. Happiness is available only as a by-product, as the side-effect of living out the self-transcendence of existence.

W]hat matters is not the meaning of man's life in general. To look for the general meaning of man's life would be comparable to the question put to a chess player: "What is the best move?" There is no move at all, irrespective of the concrete situation of a special game. The same holds for human existence inasmuch as one can search only for the concrete meaning of personal existence, a meaning which changes from man to man, from day to day, from hour to hour.

Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to be happy. Once the reason is found, however, one becomes happy automatically. Humans are rather in search of of a reason to be happy, last but not least, through actualizing the potential meaning inherent in a given situtation.

S]elf-transcendence is one of the basic features of human existence. Only as man withdraws from himself in the sense of releasing self-centered interest and attention will he gain an authentic mode of existence.

The Latin word finis has two meanings: the end or the finish, and a goal to reach. A man who could not see the end of his "provisional existence" was not able to aim at an ultimate goal in life. He ceased living for the future, in contrast to a man in normal life. Therefore the whole structure of his inner life changed;

M]eaning must not coincide with being; meaning must be ahead of being; meaning sets the pace of being. Existence falters unless it is lived in terms of transcendence toward something beyond itself.

human life, under any circumstances, never ceases to have a meaning, and that this infinite meaning of life includes suffering and dying, privation and death. I asked the poor creatures who listened to me attentively in the darkness of the hut to face up to the seriousness of our position.

Meaning must be found; it cannot be given. And it must be found by oneself, by one's own conscience.