Existential quotes
86 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
"Sometimes it has to do with other longings that are much more existential. Sometimes you go elsewhere not because you are not liking the one you are with; you are not liking the person you have become."
"Zen is not “attained” by mirror-wiping mediation, but by “self-forgetfulness in the existential 'present' of life here and now.” We do not “come”, we “are.” Don't strive to become, but be."
"The purpose of psychotherapy is to set people free."
"Science, Nietzsche had warned, is becoming a factory, and the result will be ethical nihilism."
"The ultimate source of my mental happiness is my peace of mind. Nothing can destroy this except my own anger."
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"Like great works, deep feelings always mean more than they are conscious of saying."
"Figure out for yourself what you want to be really good at, know that you'll never really satisfy yourself that you've made it, and accept that that's okay."
"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"
"The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom."
"Despair is suffering without meaning."
"Being an entrepreneur is an existential, not just a financial thing."
"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."
"The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits."
"No existence can be validly fulfilled if it is limited to itself."
"Because imaginary time behaves like another direction in space, histories in imaginary time can be closed surfaces, like the surface of the Earth, with no [existential] beginning or end."
"I'm a teleological, existential agnostic."
"Most people are other people."
"A symbol always transcends the one who makes use of it and makes him say in reality more than he is aware of expressing."
"Thus, human existence-at least as long as it has not been neurotically distorted-is always directed to something, or someone, other than itself, be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter lovingly."
"Philosophical systems are wholly true for their founders only."
"One must not let oneself be misled: they say 'Judge not!' but they send to Hell everything that stands in their way."
"I came to the conclusion that there is an existential moment in your life when you must decide to speak for yourself; nobody else can speak for you."
"People without plants are in a state of perpetual neurosis, a state of existential wanting."
"Whether you think of it as heavenly or as earthly, if you love life immortality is no consolation for death."
"The earthly meaning of eternal life was death, and she refused to die."
