Quotes About Existence

They say that every snowflake is different. If that were true, how could the world go on? How could we ever get up off our knees? How could we ever recover from the wonder of it? By forgetting. We cannot keep in mind too many things. There is only the present and nothing to remember

Everything is in constant flux on this earth. Nothing keeps the same unchanging shape, and our affections, being attached to things outside us, necessarily change and pass away as they do. Always out ahead of us or lagging behind, they recall a past which is gone or anticipate a future which may never come into being; there is nothing solid there for the heart to attach itself to. Thus our earthly joys are almost without exception the creatures of a moment...

The sociable man, always outside himself, is capable of living only in the opinions of others and, so to speak, derives the sentiment of his own existence solely from their judgment.

What good would it be to possess the whole universe if one were its only survivor?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The first sentiment of man was that of his existence, his first care that of preserving it.

I ask: which of the two, civil or natural life, is more likely to become insufferable to those who live it? We see about us practically no people who do not complain about their existence; many even deprive themselves of it to the extent they are able, and the combination of divine and human laws is hardly enough to stop this disorder.

Social man lives always outside himself; he knows how to live only in the opinion of others, it is, so to speak, from their judgement alone that he derives the sense of his own existence.

To live is not merely to breathe; it is to act; it is to make use of our organs, senses, faculties - of all those parts of ourselves which give us the feeling of existence.

Suffer, die, or get better; but whatever you do, live while you are alive.

J'aperçois Dieu partout dans ses oeuvres ; je le sens en moi, je le vois tout autour de moi ; mais sitôt que je veux le contempler en lui-même, sitôt que je veux chercher où il est, ce qu'il est, quelle est sa substance, il m'échappe et mon esprit troublé n'aperçoit plus rien.

To exist is to feel; our feeling is undoubtedly earlier than our intelligence, and we had feelings before we had ideas.

J'étais fait pour vivre, et je meurs sans avoir vécu.

Puede decirse muy bien que no empecé a vivir hasta que me tuve por muerto.

I ask: which of the two, civil or natural life, is more likely to become insufferable to those who live it? We see about us practically no people who do not complain about their existence; many even deprive themselves of it to the extent they are able, and the combination of divine and human laws is hardly enough to stop this disorder. I ask: has anyone ever heard of a savage man who was living in liberty ever dreaming of complaining about his life and of killing himself?

No one cares for reality, everyone stakes his essence on illusion. Slaves and dupes of their self-love, men live not in order to live but to make other believe they have lived!

mas a la sazón contaba treinta años y me hallaba en París, donde no puede vivirse sin contar con algo.

Jeune, vigoureux, plein de santé, de sécurité, de confiance en moi et aux autres, j'étais dans ce court, mais précieux moment de la vie, où sa plénitude expansive étend pour ainsi dire notre être par toutes nos sensations, et embellit à nos yeux la nature entière du charme de notre existence.

Two fundamental factors are at the base of this transformation. The first is the destruction of those religious, political, and social beliefs in which all the elements of our civilisation are rooted. The second is the creation of entirely new conditions of existence and thought as the result of modern scientific and industrial discoveries.

He was freer and less constrained in the womb; he has gained nothing by birth.

All these words, written so long ago, seemed to say to her, Remember us. We were here. We were real.

Don't worry," said Maddy. "People didn't make life, so they can't destroy it. Even if we were to wipe out every bit of life in the world, we can't touch the place life comes from. Whatever made plants and animals and people spring up in the first place will always be there, and life will spring up again.

why this world, which was so full of beauty and wonder, had to also be so full of horrors.

Dad was a philosopher and had what he called his Theory of Purpose, which held that everything in life had a purpose, and unless it achieved that purpose, it was just taking up space on the planet and wasting everybody's time.