EXISTENTIAL
THOUGHT
ANCIENT ORIENT
Famous Quotes about life and man
In Taoism, Buddhism and in some religious Hindu texts, there is
a strong defensive view of life as suffering; the only way to
give a meaning to life, or rather, to eliminate pain, is through
some sort of vacuum of ideas and feelings.
The quotes below are an illustration of this way of thought.
The wise man should avoid wrath, pride, deceit, greed, love,
hate, delusion, conception, birth, death, hell, animal
existence, and pain.
Jaina Sutras, Acaranba Sutra, religious Hindu
texts from the VI Century b. C.
The person who is searching for his own happiness should pull
out the dart that he has stuck in himself, the arrow-head of
grieving, of desiring, of despair.
Pali
Tripitaka, Buddhist collection of sacred texts, Sutta-Nipata
Do not interrogate silence because silence is mute; do not
expect anything from the gods, nor should you try to bribe them
with gifts, because it is in ourselves that we must look for
liberation.
Buddha,
V century b. C., in E. Morin O Homem e a Morte
The greatest of victories is the victory over oneself.
Pali
Tripitaka, Buddhist collection of sacred texts, Dhammapada
The mind of the perfect man is like a mirror. It does not lean
forward or backward in its response to these things. It responds
to them but conceals nothing of its own. So, it is able to deal
with things without injury himself.
Tchuang-Tsu, Taoist Chinese philosopher, II or III Century b.C.,
Book of Tchuang-Tzu
Do not try to be famous. Do not be a storehouse of schemes. Do
not take over the function of things. Do not try to be the
master of a manipulative knowledge.
Tchuang-Tsu, Taoist Chinese philosopher, II or III Century b.C.,
Book of Tchuang-Tzu
Try the highest degree, travelling in the realm where there is
no sign. Exercise fully what you have received from Nature,
without any subjective viewpoint. In one word: be absolutely
vacuous.
Tchuang-Tsu, Taoist Chinese philosopher, II or III Century b.C.,
Book of Tchuang-Tzu
See also:
Philosophies of life
Life is Pain
Life is a dream
MIDDLE EAST, GREEK AND ROMAN TRADITIONS
Famous Quotes about life and man
Existential thoughts are varied and profound in the Greek and
Roman worlds, and in Middle Eastern civilizations.
Despite an Oriental orientation, Mediterranean civilizations did
not advocate the vacuum of thoughts and feelings. On the
contrary, ancient Middle Eastern, Greek and Roman authors tend
to see in our reason and in our thoughts the light of our
dignity.
There is very often a pessimistic view of life due to pain and
the knowledge that our lives have a short duration.
The quotes below are an illustration of this way of thinking.
Every instant of time is a pinprick of eternity. All things are
insignificant, easily changed, vanishing away.
Marcus
Aurelius, 121-180, roman emperor and philosopher, Thoughts
Time is a violent torrent; no sooner is a thing brought to sight
than it is swept by, and another takes its place, before this
too will be swept away.
Marcus
Aurelius, 121-180, roman emperor and philosopher, Thoughts
Life is a campaign, a brief staying in a strange region.
Marcus
Aurelius, 121-180, roman emperor and philosopher, Thoughts
Everything flows and nothing abides; everything gives way and
nothing stays fixed.
Heraclites, 540-480 b. C., Greek philosopher, On Nature
Life is a child moving counters in a game.
Heraclites, 540-480 b. C., Greek philosopher, On Nature
We don’t live as we wish, but as we can.
Terence, 190-159 a.C., Roman poet, The Lady of Andros
Having glimpsed a small part of life, men rise up and disappear
as smoke, knowing only what each one has learned.
Empedocles, 483-430 b. C., Greek Philosopher, in On Nature, of
Sextus Empiricus.
Life’s short span forbids us to enter on far reaching hopes.
Horace,
65-8 b. C., roman poet, Odes
An unexamined life is not worth living.
Socrates, 470-399 a. C., Greek philosopher, in Plato Apology
We must remember that the future is neither wholly ours nor
wholly not ours, so that neither must we count upon it as quite
certain to come, nor despair of it as quite certain not to come.
Epicurus, 341-270 b.C., Greek philosopher, Letter to Menouceus
The fool’s life is empty of gratitude and full of fears; its
course lies wholly toward the future.
Epicurus, 341-270 b.C., Greek philosopher, Letter to Menouceus
He who does not think that what he has is more than ample is an
unhappy man, even if he is the master of the whole Word.
Epicurus, 4 b. C. - 65 a. C., Greek philosopher, in Seneca
Letters to
Lucilius
See
More Epicurus Quotes
The success of our plans and the advantage to be derived from
them do not often agree; the gods claim to themselves the right
to decide the final result of them.
Marcellinus Ammianus, 330-395, Roman historian, Annales
Live joyfully with the woman whom you love the days which God
has given you under the sun, for that is your portion in life.
Bible,
Ecclesiastes
All life is a struggle in the dark. (…) After a while the life
of a fool is hell on earth.
Lucrecius, 98-55 b.C, Roman poet and philosopher, De rerum
natura
Comments
Existential thought
See also:
Philosophies of life
Life and Friendship
Life and Love
Life is Pain
Life is a dream
Happiness
From High Middle Age to Modern Age
Famous Quotes about life and man
The renaissance retakes ancient Greek and roman thinking about
the meaning of life. Side by side with hope, represented by
intellectuals such as Pico della Mirandola, there is also
despair and pessimistic disenchantment.
What is life? An illusion, a dream, a fiction, and the biggest
well is small, because all life is a dream, and the dreams,
themselves are only dreams.
Calderon de La Barca, 1600-1681, Spanish writer, Life is a Dream
Life is half spent before we know what it is.
George
Herbert, 1593-1633, Scottish poet, Jacula Prudentum
The shortness of life, our obtuseness, our careless
indifference, and our sterile activities permit us to know but
little; and even this little is straightway driven from our
minds by forgetfulness, that betrayer of knowledge, that ever
hostile and faithless counterpart of memory.
John of
Salisbury, 1115-1180, English religious, Prologue to the
Policraticus
To man, and just to man, God bestowed seeds pregnant with all
possibilities, the germs of every form of life.
Pico
della Mirandola, 1463-1491, Italian Humanist, Oration On The
Dignity Of Man
We insist on believing we are free, even if between two opposite
wishes we disclose the best and choose the worst.
B.
Espinosa, 1632-1677, Dutch philosopher, Letter to G. H. Shuller.
The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.
John
Locke, English philosopher, Some Thoughts Concerning
Education.
See also:
Philosophies of life
Happiness
Life is short
Life is pain
Life is a dream
Humour about life
SCIENCE
Science introduces new explanations about the nature of life.
But the vision given by science on what we are and our lives –
that we are descendants of apes and, in fact, from bacteria,
that the Universe is monstrously big, incomprehensible and
populated by matter, without any sign of life or any beauty or
meaning – is not exactly agreeable to human eyes.
Man is infinitely removed from comprehending the extremes; the
end of things and their beginning are hopelessly hidden from
him, in an impenetrable secret.
B.
Pascal, 1623-1662, French philosopher, physic and mathematician,
Thoughts
The direct ancestor of man is very probably a «hairy quadruped,
furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its
habits».
Charles
Darwin, 1809-1882, English naturalist, The Descent of Man
The genes are the master programmers, and they are programming
for their lives.
They are in you and me; they created us, body and mind; and
their preservation is the ultimate rational for our existence.
(…) We are their survival machines.
Richard
Dawkins, English biologist, The Selfish Gene
Life is solar: all its ingredients were forged in a sun, and
then merged into a planet, through components that were spat out
by an explosive solar agony.
E.
Morin, French philosopher and sociologist, Method V
To see more:
Science and meaning of
life
Man and the Universe
Science influences a rather pessimistic philosophical view of
life
The absurd of life is born of the confrontation between the
human call and the unreasonable silence of the Universe.
Albert
Camus, 1913-1960, French writer, The Myth of Sisyphus
Reality is cruel for human beings, scattered upon the Earth,
ignoring their destiny, submitted to death, incapable of
escaping from fatal mourning, or the vicissitudes of luck,
suffering, servitude and evil.
E.
Morin, French philosopher and sociologist, Method V
Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament.
Attributed to George Santayana, 1863-1952, American
philosopher
Life is a long lesson in humility.
J. M.
Barrie, 1860-1937, Scottish writer, The Little Minister
The man that is born falls into a dream like a man who falls
into the sea.
Joseph
Conrad, 1857-1924, Anglo-polish writer, Lord Jim
Life is not an exact science, it is an art.
Samuel
Butler, 1835-1902, English writer, Notebook
To live is like to love – all reason is against it, and all
healthy instinct for it.
Samuel
Butler, 1835-1902, English writer, Notebook
Comments
Existential thought
The present – famous quotes about life
and the meaning of life
Contemporary reflexions on our existential situation are deeply
influenced by science and ancient traditions. But there is
another new element – the sarcastic and witty element, free of
censorship, yet sometimes touching on the banal or bad taste.
All animals, except man, know that the principal business of
life is to enjoy it.
Samuel
Butler, 1835-1902, English writer, The Way of All Flesh.
Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows
how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great
benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world.
Mark
Twain, 1835-1910, American writer, The Tragedy of
Pudd'nhead
Wilson and the Comedy of the Extraordinary Twins
To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and
confidence.
Mark
Twain, 1835-1910, American writer, Letter to Mrs. Foote,
2/12/1887
Life is like a beautiful melody, only the lyrics are messed up.
Hans
Christian Andersen, 1805-1875, Danish writer, Preface to
Works
Life is one damn thing after another.
Elbert
Hubbard, 1856-1915, American writer, in Philistine
There are two tragedies in life: one is not to get your heart's
desire, the other is to get.
Bernand
Shaw, 1856-1960, Irish writer, Man and Superman
Life is a cabaret, old chum. Welcome to the cabaret
Fred
Ebb, American author, in Cabaret, 1965
Do what you will, this world's a fiction and is made up of
contradiction.
William
Blake, 1757-1827, English poet, Gnomic Verses
Take care to get what you like in life, or you will be forced to
like what you get.
Bernard
Shaw, 1856-1950, English writer, Man and Superman
Patterning your life around other's opinions is nothing more
than slavery.
Lawana
Blackwell, American writer, The Dowry of Miss Lydia Clark
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though
nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle
Attributed to Albert Einstein, 1879-1955, German Physicist
Life is sowed by these miracles that only people who love can
wait for.
Marcel
Proust, 1871-1922, French writer, In the Shadow of Young
Girls
in Flower
Comments
Existential thought
To see more:
Human beings and human condition
Philosophies of life
Happiness
Life is a dream
Humour about life
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