Human Existence Quotes - Page 5

• The Bhagavad Gita deals essentially with the spiritual foundation of human existence. It is a call of action to meet the obligations and duties of life; yet keeping in view the spiritual nature and grander purpose of the universe.

  Jawaharlal Nehru

  Spiritual, Views, Foundation

  "A Tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and Wisdom Spanning Continents and Time about India and Her Culture". Book by Sushama Londhe, 2008.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Being is transcended by a concern for being. Our perplexity will not be solved by relating human existence to a timeless, subpersonal abstraction which we call essence. We can do justice to human being only by relating it to the transcendent care for being.

  Abraham Joshua Heschel

  Essence, Justice, Care

  Abraham Joshua Heschel (1965). “Who is Man?”, p.91, Stanford University Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The real tragedy of human existence is not that we are nasty by nature, but that a cruel structural asymmetry grants to rare events of meanness such power to shape our history.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Real, Rare Events, Tragedy

  Stephen Jay Gould (1993). “Eight little piggies: reflections in natural history”, Vintage

  32 Copy quote

  Show source

• I describe it ( the new aesthetics) 'radically': I say aesthetics = human being. That is a radical formula. I set the idea of aesthetics directly in the context of human existence, and then I have the whole problem in the hand, them I have not a special problem, I have a "holography" (reacting on a former suggestion of the public as a slight joke, fh) I don't know exactly what a holography is.. (1973

  Joseph Beuys

  Hands, Ideas, Special

  13 Copy quote

• It is worth repeating that powerful imagination is not false outward vision, but intense inward representation, and a creative energy constantly fed by susceptibility to the veriest minutiæ of experience, which it reproduces and constructs in fresh and fresh wholes; not the habitual confusion of provable fact with the fictions of fancy and transient inclination, but a breadth of ideal association which informs every material object, every incidental fact with far-reaching memories and storied residues of passion, bringing into new light the less obvious relations to human existence.

  George Eliot

  Memories, Powerful, Passion

  4 Copy quote

• How do we define, how do we describe, how do we explain and/or understand ourselves? What sort of creatures do we take ourselves to be? What are we? Who are we? Why are we? How do we come to be what or who we are or take ourselves to be? How do we give an account of ourselves? How do we account for ourselves, our actions, interactions, transactions (praxis), our biologic processes? Our specific human existence?

  R. D. Laing

  Giving, Our Actions, Who We Are

  7 Copy quote

• If one benefits tangibly from the exploitation of others who are weak, is one morally implicated in their predicament? Or are basic rights of human existence confined to the civilized societies that are wealthy enough to afford them? Our values are defined by what we will tolerate when it is done to others.

  William Greider

  Rights, Done, Benefits

  17 Copy quote

• Music, great music, distends the spirit, arouses profound emotions and almost naturally invites us to raise our minds and hearts to God in all situations of human existence, the joyful and the sad. Music can become prayer.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Faith, Prayer, Inspiration

  13 Copy quote

• I'm more than ever of the opinion that a decent human existence is possible today only on the fringes of society, where one then runs the risk of starving or being stoned to death. In these circumstances, a sense of humor is a great help.

  Hannah Arendt

  Running, Risk, Today

  Hannah Arendt (2000). “The Portable Hannah Arendt”, Penguin Group USA

  69 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our lives are unique stones in the mosaic of human existence -- priceless and irreplaceable.

  Henri Nouwen

  Unique, Mosaics, Stones

  17 Copy quote

• When the universe is ephemeral, one can easily feel that human existence is meaningless. Why should I do anything at all? On the other hand it is tempting to try and make the best of it. I'm here, anyway. The imagination won't cope if I try to picture where I'd otherwise be.

  Erlend Loe

  Hands, Imagination, Trying

  Erlend Loe (2011). “Naïve. Super”, p.49, Canongate Books

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is a beautiful expression of this in the Chandogya Upanishad: 'There is this City of Brahman, (that is the body), and in this city there is a shrine, and in that shrine there is a small lotus, and in that lotus there is a small space, (akasa). Now what exists within that small space, that is to be sought, that is to be understood.' This is the great discovery of the Upanishads, this inner shrine, this guha, or cave of the heart, where the inner meaning of life, of all human existence, is to be found.

  Bede Griffiths

  Beautiful, Heart, Discovery

  15 Copy quote

• Philosophy is the thoughts of men about human thinking, reasoning and imagining, and the real values in human existence.

  Charles William Eliot

  Philosophy, Real, Men

  15 Copy quote

• Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don't know it, are asleep. They're born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence.

  Anthony de Mello

  Life, Children, Learning

  "Approaching God : How to Pray". Book by Steve Brown (p. 94), 1995.

  33 Copy quote

  Show source

• Man is priest, and scholar, and statesman, and producer, and soldier. In the divided or social state these functions are parcelled out to individuals, each of whom aims to do his stint of the joint work, whilst each other performs his.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Soldier, Joints

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Ernest Spiller, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Joseph Slater, Jean Ferguson Carr (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Nature, addresses, and lectures”, p.53, Harvard University Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• School days, I believe, are the unhappiest in the whole span of human existence. They are full of dull, unintelligible tasks, new and unpleasant ordinances, brutal violations of common sense and common decency. It doesn't take a reasonably bright boy long to discover that most of what is rammed into him is nonsense, and that no one really cares very much whether he learns it or not.

  H. L. Mencken

  Believe, School, Boys

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.308, Vintage

  40 Copy quote

  Show source

• Bad artists ignore the darkness of human existence. Good artists often get stuck there. Great artists embrace the full catastrophe of our condition and find beyond it an even deeper truth of peace, healing, and redemption.

  Martha Beck

  Healing, Artist, Darkness

  Martha Beck (2012). “Finding Your Way In A Wild New World: Four steps to fulfilling your true calling”, p.150, Hachette UK

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Change is one of the scariest things in the world and yet it is also one of those variables of human existence that no one can avoid.

  Aberjhani

  Nature, Fear, Humanity

  7 Copy quote

• So one must be resigned to being a clock that measures the passage of time, now out of order, now repaired, and whose mechanism generates despair and love as soon as its maker sets it going? Are we to grow used to the idea that every man relives ancient torments, which are all the more profound because they grow comic with repetition? That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox.

  Stanislaw Lem

  Love, Men, Order

  10 Copy quote

• We never know we are beings till we love. And then it is we know the powers and potentialities of human existence.

  Jean Toomer

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Existence

  29 Copy quote

• ‎Interdependence is a fundamental law of nature. Even tiny insects survive by mutual cooperation based on innate recognition of their interconnectedness. It is because our own human existence is so dependent on the help of others that our need for love lies at the very foundation of our existence. Therefore we need a genuine sense of responsibility and a sincere concern for the welfare of others.

  Dalai Lama

  Love, Relationship, Wise

  27 Copy quote

• Thus the man who is responsive to artistic stimuli reacts to the reality of dreams as does the philosopher to the reality of existence; he observes closely, and he enjoys his observation: for it is out of these images that he interprets life, out of these processes that he trains himself for life.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Dream, Reality, Men

  "The Birth of Tragedy". Book by Friedrich Nietzsche, "Preface to Richard Wagner" (p. 13), 1872.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful, and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Beautiful, Faith, Inspiration

  Pope Benedict XVI (2006). “God's Revolution: World Youth Day and Other Cologne Talks”, p.35, Ignatius Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The spirit of a production-centered, commodity-greedy society is such that only the non-conformist can defend himself sufficiently against it. Those who are seriously concerned with love as the only rational answer to the problem of human existence must, then, arrive at the conclusion that important and radical changes in our social structure are necessary, if love is to become a social and not a highly individualistic, marginal phenomenon.

  Erich Fromm

  Life, Love Is, Important

  "The Art of Loving". Book by Erich Fromm, 1956.

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• Architecture is the frame of human existence. We must dedicate this existence more to beauty. For if poetic principle has deserted us, how long are we going to last?

  Frank Lloyd Wright

  Beauty, Long, Lasts

  10 Copy quote