Existential Quotes

...the existential paradox we all experience; we feel that we are immortal, yet we know that we will...

Acts of violence-- Whether on a large or a small scale, the bitter paradox: the meaningfulness of de...

It’s maybe impossible to escape (your own head), but I guess the secret is the prison cell just gets...

This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interestin...

If a man has his eyes bound, you can encourage him as much as you like to stare through the bandage,...

Healthy introspection, without undermining oneself; it is a rare gift to venture into the unexplored...

These solitary ones who are free in spirit know thatin one thing or another they must constantly put...

I want to end my life like a human being: in Intensive Care, high on morphine, surrounded by crippli...

I skipped the thirty-one years between 1938 and 1965 and jumped to the section entitled “Junitaki To...

But you can’t put fight into a man’s guts if hehasn’t any fight in him. There are some of us so cowa...

I realize today that nothing in the world is more distasteful to a man than to take the path that le...

He talked about luck and fate and numbers coming up, yet he never ventured a nickel at the casinos b...

They claimed no allegiance to any flag and valued no currency but luck and good contacts.

She laughed. 'It won't last. Nothing lasts. But I'm happy now.''Happy,' I muttered, trying to pin th...

All around us were people I had spent ten years avoiding--shapeless women in wool bathing suits, dul...

I always imagined that you might write something about me. I wanted to leave an imprint on your life...

...And meanwhile the Galaxy ran through space and left behind those signs old and new and I still ha...

I'd come to realize that all our troubles spring from our failure to use plain, clear-cut language.

Let us see what words can do. Will you understand me, for a start, if I tell you that I have never k...

Still, somewhere in the depths of ourselves we all harbor an ashamed, unsatisfied melancholy that qu...

All that is transitory is but a metaphor.

Yes! Very funny this terrible thing is. A man that is born falls into a dream like a man who falls i...

It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered go...

Existential envy which is directed against the other person’s very nature, is the strongest source o...

I wondered, as I wondered so often when I was that age, who /I/ was, and what exactly was looking at...

Finally, the horizon stretched out infinitely before me and I felt utterly content looking at stars ...

We are all insects. Groping towards something terrible or divine.

I am standing puzzled, unable to decide whether the veil is really being lifted, or lowered more fir...

He stood there for a moment looking around the silent room, shaking his head slowly. All these books...

Just then his state of being was so curious that he was compelled , himself, to see it -- eager, gri...

God may save all, but human rescue is only for a few.

Have you ever felt in your inmost being, the conscience of others?' again she was trembling, the wor...

With every increase in the degree of consciousness, and in proportion to that increase, the intensit...

You are a hater of activity in life; quite right, for before there can be any meaning in activity, l...

With every increase in the degree of consciousness, and in proportion to that increase, the intensit...

He loved the sea for deep-seated reasons: the hardworking artist's need for repose, the desire to ta...

Free to move, speak, extemporize, and yet. We have not been cut loose. Our truancy is defined by one...

The question of being is the darkest in all philosophy.

Might it have been nothing but life itself? Life; this limitless complex sea, filled with assorted f...

There was something heartbreakingly beautiful about the lights of distant ships, I thought. It was s...

Shukhov stared at the ceiling and said nothing. He no longer knew whether he wanted to be free or no...