Quotes
Quotes about Existence
Far too often, young people become Christians and then search among the Church's ranks for real people, and have a hard task finding them. All too often, evangelicals are paper people. If we do not preach these things, talk about them to each other, and teach them carefully from the pulpit and in the Christian classroom, we cannot expect Christians so to act. This has always been important, but it is especially so today because we are surrounded by a world in which personality is increasingly eroded. If we, who have become God's children, do not show Him to be personal in our lives, then in practice we are denying His existence, and He cannot be anything but grieved.
The problem of evil assumes the existence of a world-purpose. What, we are really asking, is the purpose of suffering? It seems purposeless. Our question of the why of evil assumes the view that the world has a purpose, and what we want to know is how suffering fits into and advances this purpose. The modern view is that suffering has no purpose because nothing that happens has any purpose: the world is run by causes, not by purposes.
Commemoration of Samuel & Henrietta Barnett, Social Reformers, 1913 & 1936 Evil can be interpreted as guilt only where human existence is understood as personal, and that means where the existence of man is understood to be in responsibility to the Divine Thou. This is the depth of human distress, that we are separated from God, that our communion with Him is destroyed, that man has emancipated himself (has taken himself out of the hand of God) and has become independent, his own master.
The Christian clearly understands that Jesus does not reveal all that is signified by the word "God", but only as much as could be revealed through a perfect human personality living in absolute obedience to God's will. The knowledge of God that men have by virtue of Jesus' revelation is quite enough for men to live by in this life, and to live gloriously and thankfully by, Christians maintainâthe knowledge that God the Creator, the Almighty and Eternal, the Lord of history, is man's Heavenly Father, and that love might well be, and indeed is, the ultimate meaning of human existence.
Feast of Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, 988 I suddenly saw that all the time it was not I who had been seeking God, but God who had been seeking me. I had made myself the centre of my own existence and had my back turned to God. All the beauty and truth which I had discovered had come to me as a reflection of his beauty, but I had kept my eyes fixed on the reflection and was always looking at myself. But God had brought me to the point at which I was compelled to turn away from the reflection, both of myself and of the world which could only mirror my own image. During that night the mirror had been broken, and I had felt abandoned because I could no longer gaze upon the image of my own reason and the finite world which it knew. God had brought me to my knees and made me acknowledge my own nothingness, and out of that knowledge I had been reborn. I was no longer the centre of my life and therefore I could see God in everything.
We must be ready, indeed eager, to see God's Name being hallowed outside the Church as well as inside. It may be that today the philosopher is honouring the Name af God when he insists that we should know what we mean when we utter our religious language and that we should be ready to have that meaning tested. It may be that other philosophers hallow the Name when they refuse to allow us to withdraw it to some supernatural realm, but insist on wrestling with the unknown God in the agony and joy of existence, crying with Jacob, "Tell me, I pray thee, thy Name." And is not the scientist honouring the Name when he patiently and obediently follows where the evidence leads? Or the social scientist when he asks us to understand what is before we begin pronouncing what ought to be? God does not spend all His time in Church.
Commemoration of Alphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1012 Faith knows nothing of external guaranteesâthat is, of course, faith as an original experience of the life of the Spirit. It is only in the secondary esoteric sphere of the religious life that we find guarantees and a general attempt to compel faith. To demand guarantees and proofs of faith is to fail to understand its very nature by denying the free, heroic act which it inspires. In really authentic and original religious experience, to the existence of which the history of the human spirit bears abundant witness, faith springs up without the aid of guarantees and compelling proofs, without any external coercion or the use of authority.
We have seen that the American Constitution has changed, is changing, and by the law of its existence must continue to change, in its substance and practical working even when its words remain the same.
Inject a few raisins of conversation into the tasteless dough of existence.
The soul, secured in her existence, smiles At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn! Look to this Day! For it is Life, The very Life of Life. In its brief course lie all the Varieties And Realities of your Existence; The Bliss of Growth, The Glory of Action, The Splendor of Beauty; For Yesterday is but a Dream, And Tomorrow is only a Vision; But Today well lived Makes every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness, And every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope. Look well therefore to this Day! Such is the Salutation of Dawn.
There are three kinds of death in this world. There's heart death, there's brain death, and there's being off the network. â¢Guy Almes A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist. â¢Steward Alsop I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death. â¢Francis Bacon When one by one our ties are torn, and friend from friend is snatched forlorn; When man is left alone to mourn, oh! then how sweet it is to die! â¢Anna Letitia Barbauld Living is death; dying is life. We are not what we appear to be. On this side of the grave we are exiles, on that citizens; on this side orphans, on that children. â¢Henry Ward Beecher Loss and possession, Death and life are one. There falls no shadow where There shines no sun. â¢Hilaire Belloc Death is as sure for that which is born, as birth is for that which is dead. Therefore grieve not for what is inevitable. â¢Bhagavad Gita How long after you are gone will ripples remain as evidence that you were cast into the pool of life? â¢Grant M. Bright No one's death comes to pass without making some impression, and those close to the deceased inherit part of the liberated soul and become richer in their humanness. â¢Hermann Broch Though it be in the power of the weakest arm to take away life, it is not in the strongest to deprive us of death. â¢Sir Thomas Browne Men are never really willing to die except for the sake of freedom: therefore they do not believe in dying completely. â¢Albert Camus Well, there's a remedy for all things but death, which will be sure to lay us flat one time or other. â¢Miguel De Cervantes Death is the liberator of him whom freedom cannot release, the physician of him whom medicine cannot cure, and the comforter of him whom time cannot console. â¢Charles Caleb Colton I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable grayness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamor, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat. â¢Joseph Conrad While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die. â¢Leonardo Da Vinci Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so. For, those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow. Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me. â¢John Donne A dead atheist is someone who is all dressed up with no place to go. â¢James Duffecy Death is the king of this world: 'Tis his park where he breeds life to feed him. Cries of pain are music for his banquet â¢George Eliot Death is the last enemy: once we've got past that I think everything will be alright. â¢Alice Thomas Ellis The pride of dying rich raises the loudest laugh in hell. â¢John W. Foster Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure in life. â¢Charles Frohman Plan for this world as if you expect to live forever; but plan for the hereafter as if you expect to die tomorrow. â¢Ibn Gabirol Fish die belly upward, and rise to the surface. Its their way of falling. â¢Andre Gide Death is the only inescapable, unavoidable, sure thing. We are sentenced to die the day we're born. â¢Gary Mark Gilmore Death is a commingling of eternity with time; in the death of a good man, eternity is seen looking through time. â¢Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe Man has the possibility of existence after death. But possibility is one thing and the realization of the possibility is quite a different thing. â¢George Gurdjieff Oh you who have been removed from God in his solitude by the abyss of time, how can you expect to reach him without dying? â¢Hallaj Death is like an arrow that is already in flight, and your life lasts only until it reaches you. â¢Georg Hermes The call of death is a call of l
In this world, man is a target of death, an easy prey to calamities, here every morsel and every draught is liable to choke one, here one never receives a favour until he loses another instead, here every additional day in one's life is a day reduced from the total span of his existence, when death is the natural outcome of life, how can we expect immortality?
In their palate alone is their reason of existence. [Lat., In solo vivendi causa palata est.]
There can be no existence of evil as a force to the healthy-minded individual.
To offer the complexities of life as an excuse for not addressing oneself to the simpler, more manageable (trivial) aspects of daily existence is a perversity often indulged in by artists, husbands, intellectualsâand critics of the Women's Movement.
To offer the complexities of life as an excuse for not addressing oneself to the simpler, more manageable (trivial) aspects of daily existence is a perversity often indulged in by artists, husbands, intellectualsâand critics of the Women's Movement.
There's nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book.
The way I see things, the way I see life, I see it as a struggle. And there's a great deal of reward I have gained coming to that understandingâthat existence is a struggle.
Only in men's imagination does every truth find an effective and undeniable existence. Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life.
One cannot long remain so absorbed in contemplation of emptiness without being increasingly attracted to it. In vain one bestows on it the name of infinity; this does not change its nature. When one feels such pleasure in non-existence, one's inclination can be completely satisfied only by completely ceasing to exist.
Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there is one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded faith.
Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.
The mystery of existence is the connection between our faults and our misfortunes.
The rich adopt novelties and become accustomed to their use. This sets a fashion which others imitate. Once the richer classes have adopted a certain way of living, producers have an incentive to improve the methods of manufacture so that soon it is possible for the poorer classes to follow suit. Thus luxury furthers progress. Innovation "is the whim of an elite before it becomes a need of the public. The luxury today is the necessity of tomorrow." Luxury is the roadmaker of progress: it develops latent needs and makes people discontented. In so far as they think consistently, moralists who condemn luxury must recommend the comparatively desireless existence of the wild life roaming in the woods as the ultimate ideal of civilized life.
