Quotes about existence
page 12

“No system of mass surveillance has existed in any society that we know of to this point that has not been abused.”

Edward Snowden (1983) American whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor

2014 <br class="br">Source: theguardian.com https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/-sp-edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-interview-transcript

“The development of fixed capital indicates in still another respect the degree of development of wealth generally, or of capital…
The creation of a large quantity of disposable time apart from necessary labour time for society generally and each of its members (i.e. room for the development of the individuals’ full productive forces, hence those of society also), this creation of not-labour time appears in the stage of capital, as of all earlier ones, as not-labour time, free time, for a few. What capital adds is that it increases the surplus labour time of the mass by all the means of art and science, because its wealth consists directly in the appropriation of surplus labour time; since value directly its purpose, not use value. It is thus, despite itself, instrumental in creating the means of social disposable time, in order to reduce labour time for the whole society to a diminishing minimum, and thus to free everyone’s time for their own development. But its tendency always, on the one side, to create disposable time, on the other, to convert it into surplus labour...
The mass of workers must themselves appropriate their own surplus labour. Once they have done so – and disposable time thereby ceases to have an antithetical existence – then, on one side, necessary labour time will be measured by the needs of the social individual, and, on the other, the development of the power of social production will grow so rapidly that, even though production is now calculated for the wealth of all, disposable time will grow for all. For real wealth is the developed productive power of all individuals. The measure of wealth is then not any longer, in any way, labour time, but rather disposable time. Labour time as the measure of value posits wealth itself as founded on poverty, and disposable time as existing in and because of the antithesis to surplus labour time; or, the positing of an individual’s entire time as labour time, and his degradation therefore to mere worker, subsumption under labour. The most developed machinery thus forces the worker to work longer than the savage does, or than he himself did with the simplest, crudest tools.”

Karl Marx book Grundrisse

Grundrisse (1857-1858)
Source: Notebook VII, The Chapter on Capital, pp. 628–629.

Time, Wealth, Art, Appearance

“Communism differs from all previous movements in that it overturns the basis of all earlier relations of production and intercourse, and for the first time consciously treats all natural premises as the creatures of hitherto existing men, strips them of their natural character and subjugates them to the power of the united individuals. Its organisation is, therefore, essentially economic, the material production of the conditions of this unity; it turns existing conditions into conditions of unity. The reality, which communism is creating, is precisely the true basis for rendering it impossible that anything should exist independently of individuals, insofar as reality is only a product of the preceding intercourse of individuals themselves.”

Karl Marx book The German Ideology

Source: The German Ideology (1845-1846), Vol. I, Part 4.

Time, Communication, Nature, Reality

“Where speculation ends — in real life — there real, positive science begins: the representation of the practical activity, of the practical process of development of men. Empty talk about consciousness ceases, and real knowledge has to take place. When reality is depicted, philosophy as an independent branch of activity loses its medium of existence. At the best its place can only be taken by a summing-up of the most general results, abstractions which arise from the observation of the historical development of men. Viewed apart from real history, these abstractions have in themselves no value whatsoever. They can only serve to facilitate the arrangement of historical material, to indicate the sequence of its separate strata. But they by no means afford a recipe or schema, as does philosophy, for neatly trimming the epochs of history. On the contrary, our difficulties begin only when we set about the observation and the arrangement — the real depiction — of our historical material, whether of a past epoch or of the present.”

Karl Marx book The German Ideology

Source: The German Ideology (1845-1846), Vol. I, Part 1, [The Materialist Conception of History].

History, Past, Knowledge, Reality

“We Shall Naturally look round in vain the macrophysical world for acausal events, for the simple reason that we cannot imagine events that are connected non-causally and are capable of a non-causal explanation. But that does not mean that such events do not exist… The so-called "scientific view of the world" based on this can hardly be anything more than a psychologically biased partial view which misses out all those by no means unimportant aspects that cannot be grasped statistically.”

C.G. Jung book Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle

Source: Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle (1960), p. 5

World, Imagination, Nature

“Competition only exists in your head, not in the marketplace.”

Isaac Mashman (2000) businessman, speaker

Source: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm11882368/bio?ref_=nm_dyk_qt_sm#quotes

“Never play to the gallery... Never work for other people in what you do. Always remember that the reason that you initially started working was that there was something inside yourself that you felt that if you could manifest in some way, you would understand more about yourself and how you co-exist with the rest of society... I think it's terribly dangerous for an artist to fulfil other people's expectations.”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

Inspirations (1997), quoted in "Looking back at David Bowie's invaluable advice for young artists" https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/david-bowie-advice-young-artists/

Way, Thinking, People, Understanding

“Western philosophy and science have for the most part been committed to the Simplicity Theory of Truth: the simplest theory that accounts for the data is the true theory. (Theories are simplest which postulate the fewest entities, require the fewest hypotheses, generate predictions by the fewest calculations, etc.) ...If someone believes that the world is made for him to have dominion over and he is made to exploit it, he must believe that he and the world are so made that he can, at least in principle, achieve and maintain dominion over everything. But you can’t put things to use if you don’t know how they work. So he must believe that he can, at least in principle, understand everything. If the world exists for man, it must be usably intelligible, which means it must be simple enough for him to understand. A usable universe is an intelligible universe is a simple universe. ...And so it goes with the philosophy and the science of The Arrogant Eye.”

Marilyn Frye book The Politics of Reality

Source: The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (1983), p. 71

Understanding, Intelligence, Universe, Truth

“I shall spend every moment loving. One who loves does not notice her trials; or perhaps more accurately, she is able to love them.
Why must we suffer? Because here below pure Love cannot exist without suffering. O Jesus, Jesus, I no longer feel my cross when I think of yours.”

Bernadette Soubirous (1844–1879) French saint

1873. Quoted in A Holy Life: St. Bernadette of Lourdes (2005) by Patricia McEachern, [//books.google.com/books?id=ESX7DQAAQBAJ&pg=PT18 ch. 2].

Suffering, Thinking, Love, Making love

“Rights are, then, the fruits of the law, and of the law alone. There are no rights without law—no rights contrary to the law—no rights anterior to the law. Before the existence of laws there may be reasons for wishing that there were laws—and doubtless such reasons cannot be wanting, and those of the strongest kind;—but a reason for wishing that we possessed a right, does not constitute a right. To confound the existence of a reason for wishing that we possessed a right, with the existence of the right itself, is to confound the existence of a want with the means of relieving it. It is the same as if one should say, everybody is subject to hunger, therefore everybody has something to eat.”

Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) British philosopher, jurist, and social reformer

Pannomial Fragments (c. 1831), quoted in The Works of Jeremy Bentham, Vol. III (1838), p. 221

Hunger, Law

“From wonder into wonder existence opens.”

Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…

“The singular intent of America in all its facets is to mix, overrun and exterminate the White race... If you support the aims or the continued existence of the entity known as America, then your treason cannot be calculated in the words of mortals.”

David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon

Revolution by Number

Support

“Society may not be the most perfect, but without perfect people to exist, it cannot either.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

Perfection, People

“Friendship only exist during happy times. There lies a betrayal line beyond those happy moments.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Betrayal, Friendship, Time, Happiness

“If the soul doesn't exist, how is it possible to converse with oneself ? Or, hear your own voice?”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Soul

“Morality must be the heart of our existence, if it is to be what it wants to be for us. ... The highest form of philosophy is ethics. Thus all philosophy begins with “I am.””

Novalis (1772–1801) German poet and writer

The highest statement of cognition must be an expression of that fact which is the means and ground for all cognition, namely, the goal of the I.
Fichte Studies § 556

Heart

“Wherever impudent assurance exists, it has but one object in view, to speak at all hazards, it cares not what.”

John Chrysostom (349–407) important Early Church Father

“Some scientists hesitate to continue in a given field of research as soon as its application becomes apparent. This refusal to apply knowledge when it exists seems to us, however, to be as unrealistic as the attempt to apply knowledge before it exists.”

Alfred Kinsey (1894–1956) American scientist (1894–1956)

Source: Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953) page 8

Knowledge

“All portions of this confederacy should act in harmony and with careful deliberation. The Democrats cry John Brown invasion. We are guiltless of it, but our denial does not satisfy them. Nothing will satisfy them but disinfecting the atmosphere entirely of all opposition to slavery. They have not demanded of us to yield the guards of liberty in our state constitutions, but it will naturally come to that after a while. If we give up to them, we cannot refuse even their utmost request. If slavery is right, it ought to be extended; if not, it ought to be restricted, there is no middle ground. Wrong as we think it, we can afford to let it alone where it of necessity now exists; but we cannot afford to extend it into free territory and around our own homes. Let us stand against it!”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Speech at Hartford (1860)

Home, Cry, Nature, Thinking

“When the intention is to spread Islam and annihilate non-Muslims, two widely discussed methods are love jihad and narcotics jihad. There is a section of people who want to establish that no such thing exists in our society today. They are trying to conceal the truth and reality.”

Joseph Kallarangatt (1956) Indian Syro-Malabar Catholic Church Bishop

India: Bishop decries ‘love jihad’ and ‘drug jihad,’ ‘In the eyes of a jihadi, non-Muslims are to be destroyed’ https://www.jihadwatch.org/2021/09/india-bishop-decries-love-jihad-and-drug-jihad-in-the-eyes-of-a-jihadi-non-muslims-are-to-be-destroyed (september 13, 2021)

People, Truth, Reality, Love

“The mystery of the world's existence — the mystery of the emergence of self-organizing matter or the mystery of the beginning of its motion.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

World

“Whenever you bring your attention to anything natural, anything that has come into existence without human intervention, you step out of the prison of conceptualized thinking and, to some extent, participate in the state of connectedness with Being in which everything natural still exists.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003), Ch 7

Nature, Thinking

“The mind is incessantly looking not only for food for thought; it is looking for food for its identity, its sense of self. This is how the ego comes into existence and continuously re-creates itself.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003), Chapter 3 The Egoic Self

Food, Sense

“The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder's lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.”

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

Source: Introduction to 1961 edition of Sceptical Essays (1961)

Religion, Passion

“Society is undergoing a silent revolution, which must be submitted to, and which takes no more notice of the human existences it breaks down than an earthquake regards the houses it subverts. The classes and the races, too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way. But can there be anything more puerile, more short-sighted, than the views of those Economists who believe in all earnest that this woeful transitory state means nothing but adapting society to the acquisitive propensities of capitalists, both landlords and money-lords?”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Source: "Forced Emigration," New York Daily Tribune, 22 March 1853.

Housing, Life, Money, Way

“All I want to live in real for once, not just to exist.”

Kazeronnie Mak

Life, Exist, Wisdom

“The modern state, in its essence and objectives, is necessarily a military state, and a military state necessarily becomes an aggressive state. If it does not conquer others it will itself be conquered, for the simple reason that wherever force exists, it absolutely must be displayed or put into action. From this again it follows that the modern state must without fail be huge and powerful; that is the indispensable condition for its preservation.”

Mikhail Bakunin book Statism and Anarchy

Source: Statism and Anarchy (1873)

“Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine so basically that's wrong.”

Kamala Harris (1964) United States Senator from California

Interview with The Morning Hustle, as quoted in The Daily Mail (2 March 2022) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10566331/Ukraine-country-Europe-Kamala-explains-Putins-invasion-laymens-terms.html <br class="br">2022, March 2022

Country

“The very fact of our existence - a miracle arousing surprise of the great minds.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

“Today, I seem to have developed a new, clear and sharper vision of my life and it's
events that were never evident to me pendant the moments that I was experiencing them as they occurred in my microcosmic world, where I was, "The Bubble Boy".
I felt that I had to clear myself of toxins which were spewed onto my entire existence through an insidious series of betrayals.
I have changed and evolved so much in my lifetime(s) and continue to everyday…every moment.
I have worked on MYSELF.
I have healed myself.
I have gotten to know who I am and know very clearly and sans doubt what a prodigious, rare and special catch I am for the correct person who will actually see and KNOW how fortunate they are to be with Me!
And I they…….. of course.
I am not nor never have I been an ordinary person in any shape or form……. I am black and white………. I possess a vast array of remarkable, innate and perfectly educated qualities which span from one end of the spectrum to the other.
I have lived the most extraordinary, privileged and charmed life. However I have experienced intense loss, pain and sorrow as well…most people are fortunate enough not to ever even be capable of fathoming such extremes."”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Personality, Boy, Life, Pain

“When someone cheats…you feel stupid
because you realize that
you were making decisions
based on a non-existent reality.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Cheating, Stupidity, Reality, Decision

“As I grow older,
I notice certain things that seemed non-existent before…
How did I miss these delicious and beautiful things in Life?
Every day is a journey and
we can never know where we will end up.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Beauty, Life

“We recognise two varieties of spirit, one of which is called the soul (ψυχή), but the other is greater than the soul, an image and likeness of God: both existed in the first men, that in one sense they might be material (ὑλικοί), and in another superior to matter.”

Tatian Address to the Greeks

Chap. xii.—The two kinds of spirits.
Address to the Greeks

God, Soul, Sense, Men

“There is a high goal, a mountain peak, a star that shines in the darkness, beckoning above the horizon. Its mere existence gives you hope—and that is the meaning without which you cannot live.”

Jordan Peterson book Beyond Order

Source: Books, Beyond Order (2021), p. 133

Mountain, Star, Hope

“We need to strategize how we can live in a world beyond nukes, because there will never be peace as long as these weapons exist.”

Abby Martin (1984) American journalist

Interview https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/10/20/what-are-the-prospects-for-peace-an-interview-with-abby-martin/ with Counterpunch (2021)

Peace, World

“Belittled. Fear, Hatred, Hardship, Unbelieved, Brought Success into existence -Engr. Abah Sule”

Engr.Abah Sule

Success, Fear

“I exist thanks to the decision of my parents, born in Poland, to rebel against the rabbis and immigrate to Israel.”

Shulamit Aloni (1928–2014) Israeli politician

שולמית אלוני, ישושון בלי דם ואש, דבר, 21 באוקטובר 1977 https://www.nli.org.il/he/newspapers/dav/1977/10/21/01/article/151?&dliv=none&e=-------he-20--1--img-txIN%7ctxTI--------------1&utm_source=he.wikipedia.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=%22שולמית+אלוני%22&utm_content=itonut

Parent, Decision

“Language is as old as consciousness, language is practical, real consciousness that exists for other men as well, and only therefore does it also exist for me; language, like consciousness, only arises from the need, the necessity, of intercourse with other men.”

Karl Marx book The German Ideology

Source: Karl Marx. The German Ideology. 1845

Men

“There's something undeniable about the posture of a person trying not to acknowledge your existance”

Anna Quindlen (1952) journalist, Novelist

Source: Every Last One

Personality

“If it is not beautiful for someone, it does not exist.”

William Gaddis book The Recognitions

Source: The Recognitions

Beauty

“My dear, did you just try to prove the existence of God through the use of your cleavage?”

Brandon Sanderson book Warbreaker

Source: Warbreaker

God

“She watched the gap between ship and shore grow to a huge gulf. Perhaps this was a little like dying, the departed no longer visible to the others, yet both still existed, only in different worlds.”

Susan Wiggs (1958) American writer

Source: The Charm School

World

“Life is full of screwups," he said, chucking another paper at the split-level before taking the corner. "You're supposed to fail sometimes. It's a required part of the human existence.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

Life, Parting

“A special kind of beauty exists which is born in language, of language, and for language.”

Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) French writer and philosopher

A Retrospective Glance at the Lifework of a Master of Books
Fragments of a Poetics of Fire (1988)

Beauty

“To be loved means to be recognized as existing.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Old Path White Clouds: Walking in the Footsteps of the Buddha

Love

“You have qualities which I had not before supposed to exist in such a degree in any human creature. You have some touches of the angel in you.”

Jane Austen book Mansfield Park

Source: Mansfield Park

Angels

“If you stare long enough at anything, you will start to find similarities. The word “coincidence” exists in order to stop people from seeing meaning where none exists.”

Chuck Klosterman Eating the Dinosaur

Source: Eating the Dinosaur

People

“Though the flesh be bugged, the circumstances of existence are still pretty glorious.”

Jack Kerouac book The Dharma Bums

Variant: Let the mind beware, that though the flesh be bugged, the circumstances of existence are pretty glorious.
Source: The Dharma Bums

“She wanted to exist only as a conscious flower, prolonging and preserving herself”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Beautiful and Damned

Source: The Beautiful and Damned

Flowers

“The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.”

Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938) American writer

The Anatomy of Loneliness (1941)

Life, Men, Loneliness

“A family can be the bane of one's existence. A family can also be most of the meaning of one's existence. I don't know whether my family is bane or meaning, but they have surely gone away and left a large hole in my heart.”

Keri Hulme book The Bone People

Source: The Bone People

Family, Heart

“I have a habitual feeling of my real life having past, and that I am now leading a posthumous existence.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Source: Selected Letters

Life, Feeling, Past

“We'll never have a true picture of reality; it just doesn't exist. But I'm real, and you're real, and those fiery balls of gas up there are real, and right now that's all I need to know.”

Wendy Mass (1967) American children's writer

Source: Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd

Reality

“Deep in each man is the knowledge that something knows of his existence. Something knows, and cannot be fled nor hid from.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Crossing

Source: The Crossing

Knowledge

“It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods. If such a board actually exists it operates precisely like the board of a corporation that is losing money.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

79
1940s–present, Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)

Money, God, Imagination, Universe

“In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself I hardly existed. I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it, before I knew at all who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be.”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Source: Upstream: Selected Essays

World

“Nightmares exist outside of logic, and there's little fun to be had in explanations; they're antithetical to the poetry of fear.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Fear

“Let us proceed under the assumption that the fairy folk do exist, and that I am not a gibbering moron.”

Eoin Colfer Artemis Fowl

Source: Artemis Fowl

“The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes

Life, Universe, Funny, Intelligence

“Why do I write? I write because I have to, because it is all I know, because it is my truth, because I am compelled, because I am driven to make the world
acknowledge that women like me exist, and we possess a dangerous wisdom.”

Patrick Califia-Rice (1954) American writer

Variant: Why do I write? I write because I have to, because it is all I know, because it is my truth, because I am compelled, because I am driven to make the world acknowledge that women like me exist, and we possess a dangerous wisdom.

Wisdom, Women, Truth, World

“Only in a world where faith is difficult can faith exist.”

Lee Strobel (1952) American writer

Source: The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity

World, Faith

“Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve and from which he cannot escape.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Source: Man for Himself (1947), Ch. 3 "Human Nature and Character

Problem, Animals

“In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued - they may be essential to survival.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Democracy, Freedom

“Man is estranged from what he essentially is. His existence in a transitory world contradicts his essential participation in the eternal world of ideas.”

Paul Tillich book The Courage to Be

Source: The Courage to Be (1952), p. 127
Source: Systematic Theology, Vol 2: Existence and the Christ
Context: Plato … teaches the separation of the human soul from its “home” in the realm of pure essences. Man is estranged from what he essentially is. His existence in a transitory world contradicts his essential participation in the eternal world of ideas.

World, Idea

“Whatever exists, he [the judge] said. Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.”

Cormac McCarthy (1933) American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter

Blood Meridian (1985)
Source: Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West

Knowledge

“One could argue that there exist certain questions that are best left unanswered.”

Dan Brown (1964) American author

Question

“If I've learned one lesson from all that's happened to me, it's that there is no such thing as the biggest mistake of your existence. There's no such thing as ruining your life. Life's a pretty resilient thing, it turns out.”

Sophie Kinsella book The Undomestic Goddess

Source: The Undomestic Goddess

Life, Learning

“Make it bend — trees are flexible, so they don’t snap. Scar it, give it a twisted branch — perfect trees don’t exist. Nothing is perfect. Flaws are interesting. Be the tree.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak

Source: Speak

Tree, Perfection

“Maybe all of her strangeness, her curse, her always feeling like an outsider, had all existed so that she could belong here, with Peter.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

Feeling

“Existence was not only absurd, it was plain hard work. Think of how many times you put on your underwear in a lifetime. It was appalling, it was disgusting, it was stupid.”

Charles Bukowski book Pulp

Source: Pulp

Stupidity, Thinking, Time

“The universe is the way it is, whether we like
it or not. The existence or nonexistence of a creator is independent
of our desires. A world without God or purpose may seem harsh
or pointless, but that alone doesn ' t require God to actually exist.”

Lawrence M. Krauss (1954) American physicist

Source: A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing

God, World, Way, Universe

“One can enjoy existence, not life.”

Jean-Luc Godard (1930) French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic

Life

“I want to believe there is a somebody out there for me. I want to believe that I exist to be there for that somebody.”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“The very existence of flamethrowers proves that sometime, somewhere, someone said to themselves, 'You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I’m just not close enough to get the job done.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

People

“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case.”

Charles Darwin book On the Origin of Species (1859)

Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), Chapter VI: "Difficulties on Theory", page 189 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=207&itemID=F373&viewtype=image <br class="br">Source: The Origin of Species

Success

“If I were going to begin practicing the presence of God for the first time today, it would help to begin by admitting the three most terrible truths of our existence: that we are so ruined, and so loved, and in charge of so little.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers

Love, God, Truth, Time

“One quality in a person doesn't rule out any other quality. They can exist side by side, good and terrible. Socrates said it a lot better.”

Thomas Harris (1940) American author and screenwriter

Personality

“Beauty exists where you least expect to find it.”

Gail Tsukiyama The Samurai's Garden

Source: The Samurai's Garden

Beauty

“Something still exists as long as there's someone around to remember it.”

Jodi Picoult book Nineteen Minutes

Source: Nineteen Minutes

“At Sunday worship, as in every dimension of our existence, many of us pretend to believe we are sinners. Consequently, all we can do is pretend we have been forgiven. As a result, our whole spiritual life is pseudo-repentance and pseudo-bliss.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Life

“If you're looking for Mr. Perfect, you‟re going to spend your whole life being disappointed, because he doesn‟t exist. You have to get the best deal you can, but there will always be problems.”

Linda Howard (1950) American writer

Source: Mr. Perfect

Life, Disappointment, Problem, Perfection

“If there was one weapon he had against these savages, it was not acknowledging their existence.”

Melina Marchetta Finnikin of the Rock

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

“Conservative, n. A statesman enamored of existing evils, as opposed to a Liberal, who wants to replace them with others.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Evil

“Perhaps, but you would not exist without a woman, would you? However little use you may find us, we are cleverer and more determined and more patient than men. Men may be stronger, but it is women who endure.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Women, Men

“I'll give you a hint. Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Variant: Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.
Source: Atlas Shrugged

Thinking

“I read the first chapter ofwhen Dad was still alive, and I got incredibly heavy boots about how relatively insignificant life is, and how, compared to the universe and compared to time, it didn't even matter if I existed at all.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Life, Universe, Time, Reading

“I exist as I am, that is enough.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

“If you behaved nicely, the communists wouldn't exist.”

Jenny Holzer Jenny Holzer

Source: Jenny Holzer

“Everything is to protect you. I exist in case you need to be protected.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated (2002)
Context: "You do not have to present not-truths to me, Sasha. I am not a child."(But I do. That is what you always fail to understand. I present not-truths in order to protect you. That is also why I try so inflexibly to be a funny person. Everything is to protect you. I exist in case you need to be protected.)

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

Shirley Jackson book The Haunting of Hill House

Source: The Haunting of Hill House

Reality