Quotes About Existence

Three things there be in all, which thou doest consist of; thy body, thy life, and thy mind.

In the morning when you rise reluctantly, let this thought be present: I am rising to do the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for which I was brought into the world? Or have I been made for this, to lie in the bedclothes and keep myself warm?

every man lives only this present time, which is an indivisible point, and that all the rest of his life is either past or it is uncertain.

present is the only thing of which a man can be deprived, if it is true that this is the only thing which he has, and that a man cannot lose a thing if he has it not.

What follows coheres with what went before. Not like a random catalogue whose order is imposed upon it arbitrarily, but logically connected. And just as what exists is ordered and harmonious, what comes into being betrays an order too. Not a mere sequence, but an astonishing concordance.

Fear of death is fear of what we may experience. Nothing at all, or something quite new. But if we experience nothing, we can experience nothing bad. And if our experience changes, then our existence will change with it—change, but not cease.

All is ephemeral, both that which remembers and that which is remembered.

Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest has been lived already, or is impossible to see.

Think of the countless changes in which you yourself have bad a part. The whole universe is change, and life is but what you deem it.

If his mind is filled with nobility, with a grasp of all time, all existence, do you think our human life will mean much to him at all?' " Ã¢â'¬ËœHow could it?' he said. " Ã¢â'¬ËœOr death be very frightening?' " 'Not in the least.

Think of the universal substance, of which thou hast a very small portion; and of universal time, of which a short and indivisible interval has been assigned to thee; and of that which is fixed by destiny, and how small a part of it thou art.

O Nature! from thee are all things, in thee all things subsist, and to thee all tend.

Es preciso, pues, aprovechar el tiempo, y ello no solo porque cada instante es un paso más que damos hacia la muerte, sino por el hecho de que antes de morir perdemos la capacidad de concebir las cosas y de prestarles la atención que merecen.

Is it not possible that a real man should forget about living a certain number of years, and should not cling to life, but leave it up to the gods, accepting, as women say, that 'no one can escape his fate,' and turn his attention to how he can best live the life before him?

iii. that if you were suddenly lifted up and could see life and its variety from a vast height, and at the same time all the things around you, in the sky and beyond it, you'd see how pointless it is. And no matter how often you saw it, it would be the same: the same life forms, the same life span. Arrogance … about this?

Whatsoever is, was made for something: as a horse, a vine. Why wonderest thou? The sun itself will say of itself, I was made for something; and so hath every god its proper function. What then were thou made for? to disport and delight thyself? See how even common sense and reason cannot brook it.

Look at the universe of which you are a part. Realize that you exist within its constant flux, that your days are numbered, and that if you don't clear the clouds from your mind now, you may never have another chance.

In this infinity then what is the difference between him who lives three days and him who lives three generations? Always

Before long, either ashes or a skeleton, and either just a name or not even that

Avanzo por los caminos que son conformes a la naturaleza hasta, tras caer, tomar un descanso; expiro en el aire de donde respiro cada día y caigo en la tierra de donde mi padre aportó su pequeña semilla, mi madre su pequeña cantidad de sangre[279], la nodriza su pequeña cantidad de leche, de donde me nutro y riego cada día durante tantos años, aquello que me lleva como caminante y que malgasto para mi propio perjuicio en tantas cosas.

Pneuma is the power—the vital breath—that animates animals and humans. It is, in Dylan Thomas's phrase, "the force that through the green fuse drives the flower," and is present even in lifeless materials like stone or metal as the energy that holds the object together—the

He who has seen present things has seen all, both everything which has taken place from all eternity and everything which will be for time without end; for all things are of one kin and of one form.

Second, that both the longest-lived and the earliest to die suffer the same loss. It is only the present moment of which either stands to be deprived: and if indeed this is all he has, he cannot lose what he does not have.

I know the gods exist. . . .—from having felt their power, over and ove