Quotes on Existence

There is a point where in the mystery of existence contradictions meet; where movement is not all movement and stillness is not all stillness; where the idea and the form, the within and the without, are united; where infinite becomes finite, yet not losing its infinity. If this meeting is dissolved, then things become unreal.

And this would normalize the existence of the Israeli and the Jew: a majority of Jews in the Land of Israel and a majority of Israelis among the Jewish People.

By my existence I am nothing more than an empty place, an outline,that is reserved within being in general. Given with it, though, is the duty to fill in this empty place. That is my life.

In the strict sense of the term, a true democracy has never existed, and never will exist.

There exists one book, which, to my taste, furnishes the happiest treatise of natural education. What then is this marvelous book? Is it Aristotle? Is it Pliny, is it Buffon? No-it is Robinson Crusoe.

The end of childhood is when things cease to astonish us. When the world seems familiar, when one has got used to existence, one has become an adult.

People commonly travel the world over to see rivers and mountains, new stars, garish birds, freak fish, grotesque breeds of human; they fall into an animal stupor that gapes at existence and they think they have seen something.

Clay is fashioned into vessels; it is on their empty hollowness that their use depends. Doors and windows are cut out to make a dwelling, and on the empty space within, its use depends. Thus, while the existence of things may be good, it is the non-existence in them that makes them serviceable.

Most people have stereo vision, so why belittle that very, very important element of our existence?

The plow is one of the most ancient and most valuable of man's inventions; but long before he existed the land was in fact regularly plowed, and still continues to be thus plowed by earthworms. It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized creatures.

The center of every man's existence is a dream.

Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence.

I have been envious of male characteristics, if not the men themselves. I'm jealous of the ease with which they seem to inhabit their professional pursuits: the lack of apologizing, of bending over backward to make sure the people around them are comfortable with what they're trying to do. The fact that they are so often free of the people-pleasing instincts I have considered to be a curse of my female existence.

Poverty is not a mortgage on the labor of others-misfortu ne is not a mortgage on achievement-fai lure is not a mortgage on success-sufferi ng is not a claim check, and its relief is not the goal of existence-man is not a sacrificial animal on anyone’s altar nor for anyone’s cause-life is not one huge hospital.

Carmen prayed hard. She prayed while standing near the priest in hopes it would give her request extra credibility. What she prayed for was nothing. She prayed that God would look on them and see the beauty of their existence and leave them alone.

I have a calling in my soul, if you like, to try to make my life in some way worthwhile. What is the value of my existence?

Make no laws whatever concerning speech, and speech will be free; so soon as you make a declaration on paper that speech shall be free, you will have a hundred lawyers proving that "freedom does not mean abuse, nor liberty license," and they will define freedom out of existence.

A good man doubles the length of his existence; to have lived so as to look back with pleasure on our past existence is to live twice.

I'm so lucky to have been raised the way I have, because my parents believed that everyone had the right to their own feelings, opinions, and existence; as long as they weren't harming others, you had to defend those rights.

The men and women who are truly filled with light are those who have gazed deeply into the darkness of their own imperfect existence.

All treaties between great states cease to be binding when they come in conflict with the struggle for existence.