Existential Quotes - Page 12

• To grasp life and meaning, we assume constancy where it does not exist. We name experiences, emotions, and subjective states and assume that what is named is as enduring as its name. Human beings blessed and cursed with consciousness - especially consciousness of their own being - think in terms of names, words, symbols.

  James Bugental

  Blessed, Thinking, Names

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• Symbols are specific acts or figures, while myths develop and elaborate these symbols into a story which contains characters and several episodes. The myth is thus more inclusive. But both symbol and myth have the same function psychologically; they are man's way of expressing the quintessence of his experience - his way of seeing his life, his self-image and his relations to the world of his fellow men and of nature - in a total figure which at the same moment carries the vital meaning of this experience.

  Rollo May

  Character, Men, Self

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• The most important thing... was to change their spirit; and since at that time I felt that literature was the best means to this end, I decided to promote literary movement.

  Lu Xun

  Mean, Important, Movement

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• But anyone who thinks themselves genuinely unbiased is bound to be taken in.

  Lu Xun

  Taken, Thinking, Unbiased

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• All who have read a few old books have picked up the old tactics of considering every new idea a 'heresy' which must be rooted out.

  Lu Xun

  Book, Ideas, Tactics

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• True, we must dare look things in the face before we dare think, speak, act, or assume responsibility. If we dare not even look, what else are we good for?

  Lu Xun

  Responsibility, Thinking, Looks

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• The world is changing from day to day; it is high time for our writers to take off their masks, look frankly, keenly, and boldly at life, and write about real flesh and blood. It is high time for a brand-new arena for literature, high time for some bold fighters to charge headlong into battle!

  Lu Xun

  Real, Writing, Blood

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• True fighters dare face the sorrows of humanity, and look unflinchingly at bloodshed. What sorrow and joy are theirs! But the Creator's common device for ordinary people is to let the passage of time wash away old traces leaving only pale-red bloodstains and a vague pain; and he lets men live on ignobly and amid these, to keep this quasi-human world going.

  Lu Xun

  Pain, Men, People

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• Men who have not known the horror of death are not likely to be awed by it.

  Lu Xun

  Men, Horror, Known

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• I could not blot out hope, for hope belongs to the future.

  Lu Xun

  Lu Xun (2014). “Call to Arms”, p.9, Simon and Schuster

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• The ability to forget the past enables people to free themselves gradually from the pain they once suffered; but it also often makes them repeat the mistakes of their predecessors.

  Lu Xun

  Pain, Mistake, Past

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• People are searching for reasons for believing, searching for answers to the big existential questions of "Why am I here?" and "What is life all about?" I find that people are able to accept the teaching of the Gospel when it's presented to them in both a rational and positive way.

  Jonathan Morris

  Believe, Teaching, People

  "Father Jonathan Morris talks about working with Mel Gibson, Fox News, self-help books and running The Cat". Interview with John W. Kennedy, www.beliefnet.com. June 2012.

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• There've been times when I have existential conversations with myself, and I've thought about leaving and trying to apply my education better. But ultimately it doesn't really matter. Learning how to write, learning how to write papers and structure, that's been very helpful for writing.

  Rashida Jones

  Writing, Leaving, Trying

  "Keeping Up with Rashida Jones". Interview with Emma Brown, www.interviewmagazine.com. August 2, 2012.

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• ather than Eisenstein's fast and hard cutting, I like to hold the shot very still and for longer than we're accustomed to. For me personally as a viewer, this technique invariably causes me to have waves of emotions that I think arise from a profound form of mindful awareness and the feelings that go along with that. I am frequently brought to tears by this kind of existential cinematic technique.

  Jenni Olson

  Cutting, Thinking, Profound

  Source: blogs.indiewire.com

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• From the Israeli perspective, the fear is that if pressure is off of Iran, Israel would be left having to accept the balance of power in the region significantly shifting toward Iran. It's not an existential threat, but it would definitely be a problem for Israel.

  Trita Parsi

  Israel, Iran, Perspective

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• I reject the idea that there is some sort of existential "clash of civilizations." I am an interventionist, but not a militarist. War should always be a last resort.

  Bernard-Henri Levy

  War, Civilization, Ideas

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• All gradients of reality, all existential distinctions, have finally been annihilated.

  Margaret Wertheim

  Art, Reality, Distinction

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• A poverty learned with the humble, the poor, the sick and all those who are on the existential outskirts of life. A theoretical poverty is no use to us. Poverty is learned by touching the flesh of the poor Christ, in the humble, in the poor, in the sick and in children.

  Pope Francis

  Children, Humble, Sick

  Pope Francis' address to The Participants in The Plenary Assembly of The International Union of Superiors General, w2.vatican.va. May 8, 2013.

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• Startups live at the intersection of existential crisis and everything going perfectly great.

  Aaron Levie

  Crisis, Existential Crisis, Intersections

  Twitter post from May 05, 2014

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• But almost always, during the initial stage of the struggle, the oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors, or sub oppressors. The very structure of their thought has been conditioned by the contradiction of the concrete, existential situation by which they were shaped. Their ideal is to be men; but for them to be men is to be oppressors

  Paulo Freire

  Struggle, Men, Contradiction

  Paulo Freire (2014). “Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition”, p.45, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• I also think that we [Americans] are operating out of fear in our country. It's not that terrorism is not a threat, but it's not an existential threat. It is not the preeminent threat facing most Americans on any given day, and yet the power of nightmares is so strong.

  Jeremy Scahill

  Country, Strong, Thinking

  Source: collider.com

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• People without plants are in a state of perpetual neurosis, a state of existential wanting.

  Terence McKenna

  People, Neurosis, Plant

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• What I'm talking about is actually is the Mystery of Being as existential fact. That there is something that haunts this world that can take apart and reduce every single one of us to a mixture of terror and ecstasy, fear and trembling. It is not an idea, that's the primary thing to bear in mind. It's an experience.

  Terence McKenna

  Talking, Ideas, Mind

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• I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it's probably that. So we need to be very careful...With artificial intelligence we're summoning the demon.

  Elon Musk

  Thinking, Needs, Demon

  "Elon Musk: artificial intelligence is our biggest existential threat" by Samuel Gibbs, www.theguardian.com. October 27, 2014.

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• I consulted a therapist at Mass. General. After about 20 minutes, he stopped me and said, 'You're just a big existential garbage pail. Go home and relax.'

  Spalding Gray

  Home, Relax, Garbage

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