Quotes About Existence

Now that Olympus no longer exists, its inhabitants dwell upon the earth.

But even with respect to the most insignificant things in life, none of us constitutes a material whole, identical for everyone, which a person has only to go to look up as though we were a book of specifications or a last testament; our social personality is a creation of the minds of others.

Our social existence, like an artist's studio, is filled with abandoned sketches.

corps astral à Golo.

Most of our faculties lie dormant because they can rely upon Habit, which knows what there is to be done and has no need of their services. But on this morning of travel, the interruption of the routine of my existence, the unfamiliar place and time, had made their presence indispensable. My habits...for once were missing, and all my faculties came hurrying to take their place.

Some philosophers argue that the external world does not exist and that it is only within ourselves that our lives evolve. Be that as it may, love, even in its humblest beginnings, is a striking example of how little reality means for us. If I had had to draw, describe or inventory the details of Mlle d'Éporcheville's features from memory, or even to recognize her in the street, I would have found it impossible.

But, as a matter of fact, we each derived a certain satisfaction from the mannerism, being still at the age in which one believes that one gives a thing real existence by giving it a name.

The reason why life may be judged to be trivial, although at certain moments to us, it seems so beautiful, is that we form our judgement ordinarily, not on the evidence of life itself, but of the mental images which preserve nothing of life and therefore, we judge it disparagingly.

And perhaps the resurrection of the soul after death is to be conceived as a phenomenon of memory.

bij alles wat het stempel draagt van de werkelijke dood, die zo verschilt van zijn logische en abstracte mogelijkheid ...

Our desires cut across one another's paths, and in this confused existence it is but rarely that a piece of good fortune coincides with the desire that clamoured for it.

It appeared that the deference which, on my grandmother's authority, we owed to Mme. de Villeparisis imposed on her the reciprocal obligation to do nothing that would render her less worthy of our regard, and that she had failed in her duty in becoming aware of Swann's existence and in allowing members of her family to associate with him. "How should she know Swann? A lady who, you always made out, was related to Marshal Mac-Mahon!

praise of God consists in the denial of him by the atheist who finds creation so perfect that it can dispense with a creator. And I was well aware, too, that it was not merely a work of art

For existence is of little interest save on days when the dust of realities is mingled with magic sand, when some trivial incident becomes a springboard for romance. Then a whole promontory of the inaccessible world emerges from the twilight of dream and enters our life, our life in which, like the sleeper awakened, we actually see the people of whom we had dreamed with such ardent longing that we had come to believe that we should never see them except in our dreams

Look: each moment is a cradle and a casket: may all life and all death seem strange to you.

Look: each moment is a cradle and a casket: may all life and all death seem strange and new to you.

Say not: I live today, I shall die tomorrow. Divide not reality between life and death. Say: now I live and die.

Ne dis pas : je vis maintenant, je mourrai demain. Ne divise pas la réalité entre la vie et la mort. Dis : maintenant je vis et je meurs.

The Word is alive. We have always known it. But it needs to be uttered, aloud or in the mind of a reader. Without a consciousness to tickle them into life, those books were dead.

Because before you acquired language, you didn't exist.

En la ausencia de Dios, no nos queda otra cosa que vivir el doble, como robándole bocanadas a la muerte. Asentí.

Más tarde habría de definir la existencia de las mujeres en los hombres como en elpatio de atrás de sus mentes

Las mujeres de mi especie saben entornar los ojos y les quedó el hábito ancestral de mirar por sobre el hombro. Es que una rara y contradictoria seguridad va plasmada a esos ojos y eso es lo único que hace tolerable la inseguridad cósmica que da el existir.

It's strange that the only certainty life gives us is one we fear so much.