Existence

Existence has been variously defined by sources. In common usage, it is the world one is aware or conscious of through one's senses, and that persists independent of one's absence. Other definitions describe it as everything that 'is', or more simply, everything. Some define it to be everything that most people believe in. Aristotle relates the concept to causality.

Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · See also · External links

A

The Statue of Liberty - The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all; respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part .

• The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all; respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
  • Unitarian Universalists Assocation (UUA) in Tracy J. Trothen Shattering the Illusion: Child Sexual Abuse and Canadian Religious Institutions: Child Sexual Abuse and Canadian Religious Institutions, Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press, 1 September 2012, p. 130

B

Luca Giordano - Dream of Solomon - Karl W. Benzing:[So], non-existence of nothingness proves Basic Existence! Since God must be basic Existence, the mere presence of basic Existence proves the existence of God.

• [So], non-existence of nothingness proves Basic Existence! Since God must be basic Existence, the mere presence of basic Existence proves the existence of God.
  • Karl W. Benzing, in Awareness - the Center of Being: A Complete Guide to Self-Awareness with Proof for the Existence of God, Zentrum Publishing, 1997, p. 73

Wilamowitz, K.Borinski:Ananke remained an elusive outsider, often perceived as cruel. But it is important that at an early stage religious and philosophical speculation closely linked Ananke to the elements of the world's existence (among which Goethe included her too).

• EXISTENCE, n.
  A transient, horrible, fantastic dream,
  Wherein is nothing yet all things do seem:
  From which we're wakened by a friendly nudge
  Of our bedfellow Death, and cry: "O fudge!"
  • Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

• Ananke remained an elusive outsider, often perceived as cruel. But it is important that at an early stage religious and philosophical speculation closely linked Ananke to the elements of the world's existence (among which Goethe included her too).
  • Wilamowitz, K.Borinski, in Otto Brendel Symbolism of the Sphere: A Contribution to the History of Earlier Greek Philosophy, Brill Archive, 1977, p. 37

• A horse is the projection of peoples' dreams about themselves - strong, powerful, beautiful - and it has the capability of giving us escape from our mundane existence.
  • Pam Brown, in Karen Weekes Women Know Everything!: 3,241 Quips, Quotes, & Brilliant Remarks, Quirk Books, 2007, p. 214

• The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you freed.
  • Buddha, in Ulrike, Because You Can! (Edition 2): Modern Thought Theories, Troll River Publications, 10 March 2012, 75

• His wretchedness, and his resistance,
  And his sad unallied existence:
  To which his spirit may oppose
  Itself—and equal to all woes.
  • Lord Byron, in The Complete Works of Lord Byron, 1835, p. 886

C

• The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.
  • Michael Card, in Joy in the Journey Through the Year, InterVarsity Press, 2007

• And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; Where we had thought to travel outward, we will come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.
  • Joseph Campbell, in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, New World Library, 2008, p. 18

• Only if you admit the existence of god does everything become meaningful.
  • Swami Chetanananda, in God Lived with Them, Advaita Ashrama, 2001, p. 430

• To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence.
  • Joseph Conrad, in A Tale of Boxes: The Role of Myth in Creating and Changing Our Stories, Wheatmark, Inc., 2009, p. 65

• “Is absence of proof the same as proof of absence?” Ochoa asked.
  “After centuries of zero evidence? Yes.”
  • Tom Crosshill, The Magician and Laplace’s Demon (2014), reprinted in Rich Horton (ed.), The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2015 (p. 412)

D

• For thousands of years, human beings have contemplated the world about them and asked the great questions of existence... Today... many of these great questions are part of science, and some scientists claim they may be on the verge of providing answers.
  • Paul Davies, Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life (2007)

• Perhaps existence isn't something that gets bestowed from the outside, by having "fire breathed" into a potentiality by some unexplained fire-breathing agency (that is, a transcendent existence generator) but is ...something self-activating. I have suggested that only self-consistent loops capable of understanding themselves can create themselves, so that only universes with (at least the potential for) life and mind really exist.
  • Paul Davies, Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life (2007)

• The chances of each of us coming into existence are infinitesimally small, and even though we shall all die some day, we should count ourselves fantastically lucky to get our decades in the sun.
  • Richard Dawkins, in Dawkins: Beyond belief, The Guardian, 10 January 2006

• It is completely unrealistic to claim, as Gould and many others do, that religion keeps itself away from science's turf, restricting itself to morals and values. A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without. The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims.
  • Richard Dawkins (1998). When Religion Steps on Science's Turf. Free Inquiry. Retrieved on 2008-09-13.

• Value is this lacking-being of which freedom makes itself a lack; and it is because the latter makes itself a lack that value appears. It is desire which creates the desirable, and the project which sets up the end. It is human existence which makes values spring up in the world on the basis of which it will be able to judge the enterprise in which it will be engaged. But first it locates itself beyond any pessimism, as beyond any optimism, for the fact of its original springing forth is a pure contingency. Before existence there is no more reason to exist than not to exist. The lack of existence can not be evaluated since it is the fact on the basis of which all evaluation is defined. It can not be compared to anything for there is nothing outside of it to serve as a term of comparison.
  • Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity. Philosophical Library. 1948. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-8065-0160-4. 

• Freedom is the source from which all significations and all values spring. It is the original condition of all justification of existence. The man who seeks to justify his life must want freedom itself absolutely and above everything else.
  • Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity. Philosophical Library. 1948. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-8065-0160-4. 

• It is unjustifiable from without, to declare from without that it is unjustifiable is not to condemn it. And the truth is that outside of existence there is nobody. Man exists. For him it is not a question of wondering whether his presence in the world is useful, whether life is worth the trouble of being lived. These questions make no sense. It is a matter of knowing whether he wants to live and under what conditions.
  • Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity. Philosophical Library. 1948. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-8065-0160-4. 

• My freedom must not seek to trap being but to disclose it. The disclosure is the transition from being to existence. The goal which my freedom aims at is conquering existence across the always inadequate density of being.
  • Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity. Philosophical Library. 1948. p. 30. ISBN 978-0-8065-0160-4. 

• To exist is to make oneself a lack of being; it is to cast oneself into the world.
  • Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity. Philosophical Library. 1948. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-8065-0160-4. 

• The rejection of existence is still another way of existing.
  • Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity. Philosophical Library. 1948. p. 43. ISBN 978-0-8065-0160-4. 

• We see that no existence can be validly fulfilled if it is limited to itself. It appeals to the existence of others.
  • Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity. Philosophical Library. 1948. p. 67. ISBN 978-0-8065-0160-4. 

• Man can find a justification of his own existence only in the existence of other men.
  • Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity. Philosophical Library. 1948. p. 72. ISBN 978-0-8065-0160-4. 

• Existence must be asserted in the present if one does not want all life to be defined as an escape toward nothingness.
  • Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity. Philosophical Library. 1948. ISBN 978-0-8065-0160-4.  Part III: The Positive Aspect of Ambiguity

• There is a concrete bond between freedom and existence; to will man free is to will there to be being, it is to will the disclosure of being in the joy of existence; in order for the idea of liberation to have a concrete meaning, the joy of existence must be asserted in each one, at every instant; the movement toward freedom assumes its real, flesh and blood figure in the world by thickening into pleasure, into happiness.
  • Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity. Philosophical Library. 1948. ISBN 978-0-8065-0160-4.  Part III: The Positive Aspect of Ambiguity

• Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence; they go stark, raving mad.
  • Fyodor Dostoevsky, inKen Davis Fire Up Your Life: Living with Nothing to Hide, Nothing to Prove, Nothing to Lose, Zondervan, 1995, p. 31

• My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse Cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation.
  • Arthur Conan Doyle, in The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Brighthouse, 2 January 2013, p. 475

E

• Ninety-nine people out of a hundred have not seriously considered what they mean by the term "exist" nor how a thing qualifies itself to be labelled real.
  • Arthur Eddington, Science and the Unseen World (1929)

Ralph Waldo Emerson:There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied, and it ...

• There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied, and it ...
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Self-reliance, BompaCrazy.com, 1 January

• Ours is the commencement of a flying age, and I am happy to have popped into existence at a period so interesting.
  • Amelia Earhart, in The Air Up There: More Great Quotations on Flight, McGraw Hill Professional, 1 January 2003, p. 10

• Indeed, in the social jungle of human existence, there is no feeling of being alive without a sense of identity.
  • Erik Erikson, in William Bloom Personal Identity, National Identity and International Relations, Cambridge University Press, 18 March 1993, p. 37

G

• The very existence of government at all, infers inequality.
  • Liah Greenfeld, in Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity, Harvard University Press, 1992, p. 451

H

• Concealment does not veil Him. His pre-existence procceeded time, His being preceded not-being, His eternity preceded limit.
  • Mansur Al-Hallaj, in Biographical Encyclopaedia of Sufis: Central Asia and Middle East, Sarup & Sons, 01 January 2002, p190

J

• All creative art is magic, is evocation of the unseen in forms persuasive, enlightening, familiar and surprising, for the edification of mankind, pinned down by the conditions of its existence to the earnest consideration of the most insignificant ...
  • Henry James, in Primary Non-Fictional Sources Volume III Notes O Life And Letters, Sarup & Sons, p. 8

• One great part of every human existence is passed in a state which cannot be rendered sensible by the use of wide awake language.
  • James Joyce, in John Bishop Joyce's Book of the Dark: Finnegans Wake, Univ of Wisconsin Press, 15 June 1993, p. 317

• As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.
  • Carl Jung, in reasury Of Spiritual Wisdom A Collection Of 10,000 Powerful Quotations For Transforming Your Life, Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 30 January 2003, p. 300

K

John F. Kennedy:When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.

• When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.
  • John F. Kennedy, in William Safire Safire's Political Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 567

• Irony is the birth-pangs of the objective mind (based upon the misrelationship, discovered by the I, between existence [Existentsen] and the idea of existence.
  • Søren Kierkegaard, in Kierkegaard's Writings, II: The Concept of Irony, with Continual Reference to Socrates/Notes of Schelling's Berlin Lectures, Princeton University Press, 21 April 2013, p. 444

• They envy you for not envying them. One of the greatest sorrows of human existence is that some people aren't happy merely to be alive but find their happiness only in the misery of others.
  • Dean Koontz, in Lightning (Google eBook), Hachette UK, 29 November 2012, p. 35

• Millions of people toil in the shadow of the law we make, and much of their livelihood is made possible by the existence of intellectual property rights.
  • Alex Kozinski, in Computers and the Law: An Introduction to Basic Legal Principles and Their Application in Cyberspace, Cambridge University Press, 29-May-2009, p. 266

• The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death — however mutable man may be able to make them — our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However, vast darkness, we must supply our own light.
  • Stanley Kubrick, in Gene D. Phillips Stanley Kubrick: Interviews, Univ. Press of Mississippi, 1 January 2001, p. 73

L

• The ultimate goal of the Web is to support and improve our web-like existence in the world. We clump into family, association, and companies.
  • Tim Berners-Lee, in Linda Seger The Better Way to Win, Xlibris Corporation, 1 March 2011, p. 132

• Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.
  • Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz, (2947)

M

Orison Swett Marden: The universe is one great kindergarden for man. Everything that exists has brought with it its own peculiar lesson...

• To exist means to be something, a thing, a feeling, a thought, an idea. All existence is particular. Only being is universal, in the sense that every being is compatible with every other being. Existences clash, being – never. Existence means becoming, change, birth and death, and birth again, while in being there is silent peace.
  • Nisargadatta Maharaj, in Basic Aspects of Human Existence., One God Site, 25 March 2013

• Every moment of one's existence one is growing into more or retreating into less. One is always living a little more or dying a little bit.
  • Norman Mailer, in November 10, Norman Mailer, Jewish Currents , 10 November 2012

• The universe is one great kindergarden for man. Everything that exists has brought with it its own peculiar lesson. The mountain teaches stability and grandeur; the ocean immensity and change. Forests, lakes, and rivers, clouds and winds, stars and flowers, stupendous glaciers and crystal snowflakes - every form of animate or inanimate existence, leaves its impress upon the soul of man. Even the bee and ant have brought their little lessons of industry and economy.
  • Orison Swett Marden, in Jack Canfield, et al., [http://books.google.co.in/books?id=UHK3yuHS5m0C&pg=PT188 A 4th Course of Chicken Soup for the Soul: More Stories to Open the Heart and Rekindle the Spirit], Open Road Media, 18 September 2012, p. 188

• The Savior said, All nature, all formations, all creatures exist in and with one another.
  • Mary, Gospel of Mary, Chapter 4. [1]

N

• We are responsible to ourselves for our own existence; consequently we want to be the true helmsman of this existence and refuse to allow our existence to resemble a mindless act of chance.
  • Friedrich Nietzsche, in Nietzsche: Untimely Meditations, Cambridge University Press, 6 November 1997, p. 128

O

P. D. Ouspensky:Man is confronted with two obvious facts: The existence of the world in which he lives; and the existence of psychic life in himself.

• Man is confronted with two obvious facts: The existence of the world in which he lives; and the existence of psychic life in himself.
  • P. D. Ouspensky, in Rowland Kenney Westering: an autobiography, J. M. Dent, 1939, p. 337

P

Robert Peel:Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

• If you knew that your life was merely a phase or short, short segment of your entire existence, how would you live? Knowing nothing 'real' was at risk, what would you do? You'd live a gigantic, bold, fun, dazzling life. You know you would. That's what the ghosts want us to do - all the exciting things they no longer can.
  • Chuck Palahniuk, in Chuck Palahniuk answers your questions about everything but his books, A.V.Club, 12 June 2007

• All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force... We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.
  • Max Planck, in Archimedes to Hawking: Laws of Science and the Great Minds Behind Them, Oxford University Press, 19 March 2008, p. 417

• Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
  • Robert Peel, in Larry Siegel Introduction to Criminal Justice, Cengage Learning, 5 January 2009, p. 202

• Every morning I wake up with the news of bloodshed. I feel my body, desperate to know whether I’m still alive.
  • Suman Pokhrel, Every Morning

• An uneasy rhythm of life is more life like than an easy death
  • Suman Pokhrel, Khorampa

• I asked none why life ends in ways uncertain.
  • Suman Pokhrel, Khorampa

• Human being is the most complicated chapter of existence
  • Suman Pokhrel, Interview with Dagmara K for Spillwords

R

Ronald Reagan:Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.

• Existence is a mystery, and one should accept it as a mystery and not pretend to have any explanation.
  • Rajneesh, in Lyn Genelli, Tom Davis Genelli Death at the Movies: Hollywood's Guide to the Hereafter, Quest Books, 2013, p. 171

• Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
  • Ayn Rand, in Patrick Lee Plaisance Media Ethics: Key Principles for Responsible Practice, SAGE Publications Inc, 2009, p. 176

• Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.
  • Ronald Reagan, in Summary of Time to Get Tough: Making America #1 Again - Donald Trump, Primento, 21 June 2013, p. 14

• It appeared to me that the dignity of which human existence is capable is not attainable by devotion to the mechanism of life, and that unless contemplation of eternal things is preserved, mankind will become no better than well-fed pigs.
  • Bertrand Russell, in Autobiography, Routledge, 1 September 2009, p. 149

S

José Gregorio Monagas abolished slavery in Venezuela in 1854.

• Real intelligence must be fiercely capable of investigating every aspect of existence, including the very process of knowledge that we call science.
  • Adi Da Samraj, in The heart's shout: perfect and urgent wisdom from the living heart of reality, the incarnate divine person, Dawn Horse Press, 1 September 1996, p. 105

• All the manifested world of things and beings are projected by imagination upon the substratum which is the Eternal All pervading Vishnu, whose nature is Existence-Intelligence; just as the different ornaments are all made out of the same gold.
  • Adi Shankara, in Swami Chinmayananda Atma Bodh, Chinmaya Mission, 1987, p. 16

• Life could not be lived wet, whether it be in rain or tears.
  • Sanu Sharma, Utsarga

• Life doesn't end just because someone leaves.
  • Sanu Sharma, Lockdown

• Recognition of the modes of existence of technical objects must be the result of philosophic consideration; what philosophy has to achieve in this respect is analogous to what the abolition of slavery achieved in affirming the worth of the individual human being.
  • Gilbert Simondon, in On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects, University of Western Ontario, June 1980

• To furnish the means of acquiring knowledge is…the greatest benefit that can be conferred upon mankind. It prolongs life itself and enlarges the sphere of existence.
  • Report on the establishment of the Smithsonian, in John Quincy Adams Founders V. Bush: A Comparison in Quotations of the Policies and Politics of the Founding Fathers and George W. Bush, Founders v. Bush, 2007, p. 37

T

• You exist if and only if you are free to do things without a visible objective, with no justification and, above all, outside the dictatorship of someone else’s narrative.
  • Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010) Matters Ontological, p. 17.

• The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence.
  • Rabindranath Tagore, in Rabindranath Tagore: Universality and Tradition, Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 2003, p. 76

• Statistically, the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you'd think the mere fact of existing would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise. We are alive against the stupendous odds of genetics, infinitely outnumbered by all the alternatives who might, except for luck, be in our places.
  • Lewis Thomas, in Exploring the Road Less Traveled: A Study Guide for Small Groups, Simon and Schuster, 2 November 1985, p. 111

• Man’s basic anxiety … drives the anxious subject to establish objects of fear. Anxiety strives to become fear, because fear can be met by courage. … Horror is ordinarily avoided by the transformation of anxiety into fear of something, no matter what. The human mind is not only, as Calvin has said, a permanent factory of idols, it is also a permanent factory of fears—the first in order to escape God, the second in order to escape anxiety. … But ultimately the attempts to transform anxiety into fear are vain. The basic anxiety, the anxiety of a finite being about the threat of nonbeing, cannot be eliminated. It belongs to existence itself.
  • Paul Tillich, The Courage To Be (1952), p. 39.

• Life is a wave which in no two consecutive moments of its existence is composed of the same particles.
  • John Tyndall, in Fragments of Science: A Series of Detached Essays, Addresses, and Reviews (Google eBook), Longmans, Green, 1876, p. 463

V

• All things are just like that-they do not exist, yet do not not exist. And that they do not exist, yet do not not exist, is exactly what the Buddha teaches.
  • Said to Shariputra by a Buddhist goddess, in Vimalakirti Sutra, Chapter VII, as translated by Burton Watson, Columbia University Press, 2000, ISBN: 0231106572.

W

• One important reason for studying philosophy is that it deals with fundamental questions about the meaning of our existence.
  • Nigel Warburton, Philosophy: The Basics (Fifth ed., 2013), Introduction

• One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to the total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying.
  • Morris West, in Christopher K. Germer, Ronald D. Siegel Wisdom and Compassion in Psychotherapy: Deepening Mindfulness in Clinical Practice, Guilford Press, 2012, p. 214

• I experience the same sense of absurdity when I listen to a cosmologist like Stephen Hawking telling us that the universe began with a big bang fifteen billion years ago, and that physics will shortly create a 'theory of everything' that will answer every possible question about our universe; this entails the corollary that God is an unnecessary hypothesis. Then I think of the day when I suddenly realized that I did not know where space ended, and it becomes obvious that Hawking is also burying his head in the sand. God may be an unnecessary hypothesis for all I know, and I do not have the least objection to Hawking dispensing with him, but until we can understand why there is existence rather than nonexistence, then we simply have no right to make such statements. It is unscientific. The same applies to the biologist Richard Dawkins, with his belief that strict Darwinism can explain everything, and that life is an accidental product of matter. I feel that he is trying to answer the ultimate question by pretending it does not exist.
  • Colin Wilson in Alien Dawn, pp. 301-302 (1998)

• ‘Growth of God’ signifies the existence of God, or at least the existence of something you might call divine, however, unlike ancient conceptions of God.
  • Robert Wright, in The Evolution of God: The origins of our beliefs, Hachette UK, 11 April 2010, p. 181

Z

• Everyone - pantheist, atheist, skeptic, polytheist - has to answer these questions: 'Where did I come from? What is life's meaning? How do I define right from wrong and what happens to me when I die?' Those are the fulcrum points of our existence.
  • Ravi Zacharias, in Beyond the Shadows and Other Essays, Domenic Marbaniang, p. 109

See also

• Existence precedes essence