Quotes about Existence

Through the ages, man's main concern was life after death. Today, for the first time, we find we must ask questions about whether there will be life before death.

Man's Place in Nature.

For nature by the same cause, provided it remain in the same condition, always produces the same effect, so that either coming-to-be or passing-away will always result.

We are all star stuff.

The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.

Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.

Faced with the mind-surpassing grandeur of the universe, we cannot but admit that there is meaning which is greater than man.

Mundus vult decipi'—the world wants to be deceived. To live without deception presupposes standards beyond the reach of most people whose existence is largely shaped by compromise, evasion and mutual accommodation. Could they face their weakness, their vanity and selfishness, without a mask?

Indeed, the sort of crimes and even the amount of delinquency that fill the prophets of Israel with dismay do not go beyond that which we regard as normal, as typical ingredients of social dynamics. To us a single act of injustice--cheating in business, exploitation of the poor--is slight; to the prophets, a disaster. To us injustice is injurious to the welfare of the people; to the prophets it is a deathblow to existence: to us, an episode; to them, a catastrophe, a threat to the world.

Technical civilization is man's conquest of space. It is a triumph frequently achieved by sacrificing an essential ingredient of existence, namely, time. In technical civilization, we expend time to gain space. To enhance our power in the world of space is our main objective. Yet to have more does not mean to be more. The power we attain in the world of space terminates abruptly at the borderline of time. But time is the heart of existence.

Time...which is eternity in disguise.

A world without time would be a world without God, a world existing in and by itself, without renewal, without a Creator.