Quotes about existence
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Edward Snowden photo

“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
Source: theguardian.com https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/-sp-edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-interview-transcript

Karl Marx photo

“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.”

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

Karl Marx photo
Karl Marx photo
C.G. Jung photo
Isaac Mashman photo

“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

David Bowie photo
Bernadette Soubirous photo
Jeremy Bentham photo
Laozi photo

“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…
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Novalis photo

“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

John Chrysostom photo
Alfred Kinsey photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Joseph Kallarangatt photo

“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)

Zafar Mirzo photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Bertrand Russell photo
Karl Marx photo

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

Life, Exist, Wisdom

Mikhail Bakunin photo
Kamala Harris photo

“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
2022, March 2022

Jordan Peterson photo
Abby Martin photo

“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)

Shulamit Aloni photo

“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

Karl Marx photo
Anna Quindlen photo
Brandon Sanderson photo
Sarah Dessen photo
Gaston Bachelard photo

“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)

Thich Nhat Hanh photo

“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

Jane Austen photo
Chuck Klosterman photo
Jack Kerouac photo

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

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

F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
Thomas Wolfe photo
John Keats photo

“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

Cormac McCarthy photo
H.L. Mencken photo
Stephen King photo
Eoin Colfer photo

“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.

Lee Strobel photo

“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

Erich Fromm photo

“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

Noam Chomsky photo
Paul Tillich photo

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

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.

Cormac McCarthy photo

“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

Sophie Kinsella photo
Laurie Halse Anderson photo
Charles Bukowski photo
Lawrence M. Krauss photo
Jean-Luc Godard photo

“One can enjoy existence, not life.”

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

“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

George Carlin photo
Charles Darwin photo

“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.”

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
Source: The Origin of Species

Anne Lamott photo
Ambrose Bierce photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Ayn Rand photo

“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.”

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

Jonathan Safran Foer photo
Walt Whitman photo

“I exist as I am, that is enough.”

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

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

Source: Jenny Holzer

Jonathan Safran Foer photo

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

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.)

Michael Ende photo
Allen Ginsberg photo

“he threw up his hands
and wrote the Universe dont exist
and died to prove it”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

Source: The Fall of America: Poems of These States 1965-1971

Laurell K. Hamilton photo
J. Michael Straczynski photo

“It is not for the gods to decide whether or not Man exists - it is for Man to decide whether or not the gods exist.”

J. Michael Straczynski (1954) American writer and television producer

Source: Thor, by J. Michael Straczynski, Volume 1

Nicholas Sparks photo
Evelyn Waugh photo
Hugh Laurie photo
Zelda Fitzgerald photo
Paulo Coelho photo
Roland Barthes photo