Existence Quotes - Page 4

• Scientific discovery consists in the interpretation for our own convenience of a system of existence which has been made with no eye to our convenience at all.

  Norbert Wiener

  Eye, Science, Discovery

  The Human Use of Human Beings ch. 7 (1949)

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• The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

  Jack London

  Inspirational, Life, Inspiring

  Quoted in Bulletin (San Francisco), 2 Dec. 1916.

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• PRE-EXISTENCE, n. An unnoted factor in creation.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Creation, Factors

  Ambrose Bierce (2012). “The Devil's Dictionary”, p.96, Courier Corporation

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• There's nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book.

  Carson McCullers

  Song, Book, Addresses

  Carson McCullers (1998). “Collected Stories of Carson McCullers”, p.162, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Leadership is a matter of how to be, not how to do it.

  Frances Hesselbein

  Life, Leadership, Matter

  Peter F. Drucker, Joan Snyder Kuhl, Frances Hesselbein (2015). “Peter Drucker's Five Most Important Questions: Enduring Wisdom for Today's Leaders”, p.85, John Wiley & Sons

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• As long as hierarchy persists, as long as domination organises humanity around a system of elites, the project of dominating nature will continue to exist and inevitably lead our planet to ecological extinction.

  Murray Bookchin

  Nature, Persistence, Long

  "Toward an Ecological Society". Book by Murray Bookchin, 1980.

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• If you're willing to put yourself and your dreams on the line, at the very least you'll discover an inner strength you may not have known existed.

  Kurt Warner

  Football, Dream, Motivational Sports

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• The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.

  H. L. Mencken

  Life, Spiritual, War

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.131, Vintage

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• To exist is equivalent to an act of faith, a protest against the truth, an interminable prayer. As soon as they consent to live, the unbeliever and the man of faith are fundamentally the same, since both have made the only decision that defines a being.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Life, Faith, Prayer

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• Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.

  Ayn Rand

  Inspirational, Men, Progress Of Society

  The Fountainhead pt. 4, ch. 18 (1943)

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• NOUMENON, n. That which exists, as distinguished from that which merely seems to exist, the latter being a phenomenon. The noumenon is a bit difficult to locate; it can be apprehended only by a process of reasoning - which is a phenomenon.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Process, Latter, Difficult

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.151, 谷月社

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• Borders I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people.

  Thor Heyerdahl

  Inspirational, Travel, Adventure

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• Snatching the eternal out of the desperately fleeting is the great magic trick of human existence.

  Tennessee Williams

  Magic, Fleeting, Eternity

  Tennessee Williams (1978). “Where I Live: Selected Essays”, p.52, New Directions Publishing

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• All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Art, Science

  Albert Einstein (2011). “Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words”, p.10, Open Road Media

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• We often wonder why God gives and takes, constricts and expands. What we forget is that human beings understand things by their opposites. Without dark, we can’t understand light. Without hardship, we wouldn’t *experience* ease. Without the existence of deprivation and loss, we couldn’t grasp the need for gratitude or the virtue of patience. And without separation, we wouldn’t taste the sweetness of reunion. Glory be to the one who gives—even when He takes.

  Yasmin Mogahed

  Gratitude, Loss, Dark

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• Question with boldness even the existence of a god.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Atheist, Faith Religion

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.90, Rowman & Littlefield

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• The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist.

  Kevin Carter

  Life, Suicide, Pain

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• We are one, after all, you and I, together we suffer, together exist and forever will recreate each other.

  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

  Inspirational, Change, Forever

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• Learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.

  Eric Hoffer

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  Speech on the Occasion of the Opening of the Governor General's Canadian Leadership Conference by Adrienne Clarkson in Winnipeg, archive.gg.ca. May 07, 2004.

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• I don't know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn't.

  Jules Renard

  Funny, God, Sarcastic

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• No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.

  Shirley Jackson

  Life, Reality, Long

  Shirley Jackson (2013). “The Haunting of Hill House”, p.34, Penguin

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• I do not seek the good of others as a sanction for my right to exist, nor do I recognize the good of others as a justification for their seizure of my property or their destruction of my life.

  Ayn Rand

  Life, Rights, Novelists

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.78, Penguin

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• A universe without purpose should neither depress us nor suggest that our lives are purposeless. Through an awe-inspiring cosmic history we find ourselves on this remote planet in a remote corner of the universe, endowed with intelligence and self-awareness. We should not despair, but should humbly rejoice in making the most of these gifts, and celebrate our brief moment in the sun.

  Lawrence M. Krauss

  Depressing, Humble, Self

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• I’m grateful for being here, for being able to think, for being able to see, for being able to taste, for appreciating love – for knowing that it exists in a world so rife with vulgarity, with brutality and violence, and yet love exists. I’m grateful to know that it exists.

  Maya Angelou

  Love, Life, Positive

  FaceBook post by Maya Angelou from Jan 26, 2013

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• Once we agree with God that we exist for His pleasure and His glory, we can accept whatever comes into our lives as a part of His sovereign will and purpose. We will not resent, resist, or reject the hard things, but embrace them as friends, sovereignly designed by God to make us more like Jesus and to bring glory to Himself.

  Nancy Leigh DeMoss

  God, Religious, Jesus

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