“That which is produced with intention has passed over from non-existence to existence.”

— Maimónides , book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.13

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Maimónides 180

rabbi, physician, philosopher 1138–1204

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“When the unreal is taken for the real, then the real becomes unreal;
Where non-existence is taken for existence, then existence becomes non-existence.”

Wang Chi-chen (1899–2001)

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“There is not a single criterion which can serve as the measure of the non-existent, of the non-human.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Alternate translation: Not one of our mortal gauges is suitable for evaluating non-existence, for making judgments about that which is not a person.
Ни одна наша смертная мерка не годится для суждения о небытии, о том, что не есть человек.
Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)

“All the great evils which men cause to each other because of certain intentions, desires, opinions, or religious principles, are likewise due to non-existence, because they originate in ignorance, which is absence of wisdom.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.11

“The so-called evils are evils only in relation to a certain thing, and that which is evil in relation to a certain existing thing, either includes the non-existence of that thing or the non-existence of some of its good conditions.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

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“The proposition has… been laid down in the most general terms, "All evils are negations." Thus for man death is evil; death is his non-existence. Illness, poverty, and ignorance are evils for man; all these are privations of properties…. The destruction of other things is likewise nothing but the absence of their form. After these propositions, it must be admitted as a fact that it cannot be said of God that He directly creates evil, or He has the direct intention to produce evil; this is impossible. His works are all perfectly good. He only produces existence, and all existence is good; whilst evils are of a negative character, and cannot be acted upon.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.10

“The Mutakallemim… apply the term non-existence only to absolute non-existence, and not to absence of properties. A property and the absence of that property are considered by them as two opposites, they treat, e. g., blindness and sight, death and life, in the same way as heat and cold. Therefore they say, without any qualification, non-existence does not require any agent, an agent is required when something is produced.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.10

“In principio it is impossible to prove from experiments that something is non-existent.”

Felix Ehrenhaft (1879–1952) Austrian physicist

The Magnetic Current http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1941Sci....94..232E, Science, Volume 94, Issue 2436, pp. 232-233 (September, 1941)

“What does not exist must be something, or it would be meaningless to deny its existence; and hence we need the concept of being, as that which belongs even to the non-existent.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

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“There is no denying existence itself. Something must exist and anyone who says nothing exists at all makes a mockery of sense and necessity. The proposition that there is no denying being itself, then, is a necessary premise. Now this Being which has been admitted in principle is either necessary or contingent… What this means is that a being must be self-sufficient or dependent… From here we argue: If the being the existence of which is conceded be necessary, then the existence of a necessary Being is established. If, on the other hand, its existence is contingent, every contingent being depends on a necessary Being; for the meaning of its contingency is that its existence and non-existence are equally possible. Whatever has such a characteristic cannot have its existence selected for without a determining or selecting agent. This too is necessary. So from these necessary premises the existence of a necessary Being is established.”

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111) Persian Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic

(1964) Fada’ih al-Batiniyya. Edited by Abdurahman Badawi. Kuwait: Muasassa Dar al-Kutub al-Thiqafa, p. 82.

“From the Throne to the earth is the creation of God Most High; everything but his existence is his action. He brought them into existence from pure non-being.”

Ruzbihan Baqli (1128–1209) Persian poet, mystic, and Sufi

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2002), p.112

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