Quotes About Being

is gleaned from both "books" together. The "contemplation of nature" (?????? ??????) and of the structures of meaning (?????) hidden within it, structures that are part of every single being, becomes for Maximus a necessary step, a kind of initiation, into the knowledge of God.

person and existence are forced to draw together, and from the same depths of being—which is more than all intelligible essence—arises the invitation of a personal God to his created child, an event that belongs to another realm altogether than all the in-built natural orientations—however mystical—of intellectual beings.

the connection between being and person that is expressed in the word hypostasis.

God defines himself as "I am who I am", which also means: My being is such that I shall always be present in every moment of becoming.

It was clear to me that the forms of consciousness of our inherited and acquired historical education - aesthetic consciousness and historical consciousness - presented alienated forms of our true historical being.

No matter what they wish for, no matter how far they go, people can never be anything but themselves. That's all.

Man is an intellectual animal, therefore an everlasting contradiction to himself. His senses centre in himself, his ideas reach to the ends of the universe; so that he is torn in pieces between the two without the possibility of its ever being otherwise. A mere physical being or a pure spirit can alone be satisfied with itself.

The reason why man seeks for happiness is not because happiness is his sustenance, but because happiness is his own being; therefore in seeking for happiness, man is seeking for himself.

Es gibt zweierlei: Wissen und Sein. Es ist leicht, die Wahrheit zu wissen, aber sehr schwer, Wahrheit zu sein. Nicht im Wissen der Wahrheit erfüllt sich der Zweck des Lebens; er erfüllt sich dadurch, dass man Wahrheit ist.

Every form seems to be derived from another, all figures being derived from Alif which is originally derived from a dot and represents zero, nothingness (In Arabic the zero is written as a dot.) It is that nothingness which creates the first form Alif. It is natural for everyone when writing to make a dot as soon as the pen touches the paper, and the letters forming the words hide the origin. In like manner the origin of the One Being is hidden in His manifestation.

It is the soul which is happiness itself, not all outer things which man seeks after, and which he thinks will give him happiness. The very fact that man is continually craving for happiness shows that the real element, which may be called man's real being, is not what has formed his body and what has composed his mind, but what he is in himself.

You and me could really exist

We must therefore entertain the hypothesis that there is an important connection between being 'dialectical' and dreaming, just as there is between dreaming and poetry or mysticism."21

A person who believes ... that things fit: that there is a whole of which one is a part, and that in being a part one is whole: such a person has no desire whatever, at any time, to play God. Only those who have denied their being yearn to play at it.

Art is craft: all art is always and essentially a work of craft: but in the true work of art, before the craft and after it, is some essential durable core of being, which is what the craft works on, and shows, and sets free. The statue in the stone. How does the artist find that, see it, before it's visible? That is a real question.

Our model of the cosmos must be as inexhaustible as the cosmos. A complexity that includes not only duration but creation, not only being but becoming, not only geometry but ethics. It is not the answer we are after, but only how to ask the question.

Try to comprehend the unity of all; there is one God, and all are one in Him. If we can but bring home to ourselves the unity of that Eternal Love, there will be no more sorrow for us; for we shall realize, not for ourselves alone but for those whom we love, that whether we live or die, we are the Lord's, and that in Him we live and move and have our being, whether it be in this world or in the world to come.

The primary reality is not what I think, but that I live, for those also live who do not think.

Awareness has no frontier; it is giving of your whole being, without exclusion.

Cities are the huge central dynamos of all being. The power of a man can be measured today by the mile, the number of miles between him and the city; that is, between him and what the city stands for -- the centre of mass.

The thing that lies at the foundation of positive change, the way I see it, is service to a fellow human being.

Why is there anything at all rather than nothing whatsoever?

Life never end when you are in it.

I hurt, therefore I am.