#existence

What then do you call your soul? What idea have you of it? You cannot of yourselves, without revelation, admit the existence within you of anything but a power unknown to you of feeling and thinking. ↗

— Voltaire

#anything #call #cannot #existence #feeling

Religion may be defined thus: a belief in, and homage rendered to, existences unseen and causes unknown. ↗

— Frances Wright

#causes #defined #existences #homage #may

The West Indian is not exactly hostile to change, but he is not much inclined to believe in it. This comes from a piece of wisdom that his climate of eternal summer teaches him. It is that, under all the parade of human effort and noise, today is like yesterday, and tomorrow will be like today; that existence is a wheel of recurring patterns from which no one escapes; that all anybody does in this life is live for a while and then die for good, without finding out much; and that therefore the idea is to take things easy and enjoy the passing time under the sun. The white people charging hopefully around the islands these days in the noon glare, making deals, bulldozing airstrips, hammering up hotels, laying out marinas, opening new banks, night clubs, and gift shops, are to him merely a passing plague. They have come before and gone before. ↗

— Herman Wouk

#existence #life #modernity #summer #tropics

What is this thing called life? I believe That the earth and the stars too, and the whole glittering universe, and rocks on the mountains have life, Only we do not call it so--I speak of the life That oxidizes fats and proteins and carbo- Hydrates to live on, and from that chemical energy Makes pleasure and pain, wonder, love, adoration, hatred and terror: how do these things grow From a chemical reaction? I think they were here already, I think the rocks And the earth and the other planets, and the stars and the galaxies have their various consciousness, all things are conscious; But the nerves of an animal, the nerves and brain Bring it to focus; the nerves and brain are like a burning-glass To concentrate the heat and make it catch fire: It seems to us martyrs hotter than the blazing hearth From which it came. So we scream and laugh, clamorous animals Born howling to die groaning: the old stones in the dooryard Prefer silence; but those and all things have their own awareness, As the cells of a man have; they feel and feed and influence each other, each unto all, Like the cells of a man's body making one being, They make one being, one consciousness, one life, one God. ↗

— Robinson Jeffers

#god #life #the-universe #life

Затворете се в къщи, свийте се в охлювната си черупка, станете пепеляви, кротки, плахи, и никога нищо ярко и разтърсващо няма да ви се случи. Или почти нищо. Живот без задъханото присъствие на Случая е мъртвило. Самото предусещане, че може да те връхлети нещо непредвидено, че изобретателният Случай диша нейде в тила ти, че те причаква зад оня гребен на планината, зад оня дънер - това придава на дните тръпчивия жизнен сок. Да си нащрек: нещо ти предстои! Това е може би истинското съществуване. В такива мигове на изтръпване пред неизвестното влизаш в контакт с всичко. ↗

— Blaga Dimitrova

#life #life

In other words, the man who is born into existence deals first with language; this is a given. He is even caught in it before his birth. ↗

— Jacques Lacan

#birth #born #caught #deals #even

Spend time reflecting on your emotional and physical existence and how that applies to the voice. You have to apply that wisdom and experience when you sing - it's what comes through. ↗

— K. D. Lang

#apply #comes #emotional #existence #experience

Now, we occupy a lowly position, both in space and rank in comparison with the heavenly sphere, and the Almighty is Most High not in space, but with respect to absolute existence, greatness and power. ↗

— Maimonides

#almighty #both #comparison #existence #greatness

Join me in my quest for a greater understanding of our existence. Join me in my desire for a greater self. Join me as I seek the humility to love and understand my fellow man. ↗

— Bryant H. McGill

#existence #fellow #fellow man #greater #greater understanding

Consciousness of myself, combined with complete ignorance of everything that does not fall within my sphere of thinking, is the most telling proof of my substantiality outside God, of my original existence. ↗

— Moses Mendelssohn

#complete #consciousness #does #everything #existence