Existential Quotes - Page 2

The purpose of psychotherapy is to set people free.

From the very beginning, existentialism defined itself as a philosophy of ambiguity.

Zen is not “attained” by mirror-wiping mediation, but by “self-forgetfulness in the existential 'present' of life here and now.” We do not “come”, we “are.” Don't strive to become, but be.

I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world.

Like great works, deep feelings always mean more than they are conscious of saying.

Although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt.

The world is, of course, nothing but our conception of it.

Science, Nietzsche had warned, is becoming a factory, and the result will be ethical nihilism.

One cannot lead a life that is truly excellent without feeling that one belongs to something greater and more permanent than oneself.

The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.

Figure out for yourself what you want to be really good at, know that you'll never really satisfy yourself that you've made it, and accept that that's okay.

Death is a continuation of my life without me.

The ultimate source of my mental happiness is my peace of mind. Nothing can destroy this except my own anger.

The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom.

But almost always, during the initial stage of the struggle, the oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors, or sub oppressors. The very structure of their thought has been conditioned by the contradiction of the concrete, existential situation by which they were shaped. Their ideal is to be men; but for them to be men is to be oppressors

Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant.

One is still what one is going to cease to be and already what one is going to become. One lives one's death, one dies one's life.

Words are loaded pistols.

Despair is suffering without meaning.

Life should be lived on the edge of life.

I could not blot out hope, for hope belongs to the future.

Psychoanalysis and Zen, in my private psychic geometry, are equal to nicotine. They are anti-existential. Nicotine quarantines one out of existence.

Being an entrepreneur is an existential, not just a financial thing.

Nothingness haunts Being.

The crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die.