A symbol always transcends the one who makes use of it and makes him say in reality more than he is aware of expressing.
Human beings are remarkably resilient. When you think about it, our species has been teetering upon the edge of the existential cliff since Hiroshima. In short, we endure.
Science, Nietzsche had warned, is becoming a factory, and the result will be ethical nihilism.
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.
. . . Erich Fromm wondered why most people did not become insane in the face of the existential contradiction between a symbolic self, that seems to give man infinite worth in a timeless scheme of things, and a body that is worth about 98¢.
All I've ever wanted to do was be a great dad, and yet there's no stopping this existential mirror that's held up to yourself when you're about to have a kid.
And, what we've allowed ourselves to become - and this is part of Chris' ideas - is complacent, in allowing our lives to be taken over, or at least in allowing that kind of scrutiny into our lives. We've given up a little bit of that, and this is the existential nightmare of all of that. What happens when you suddenly find out that people have been watching you, with a purpose?
There is certainly a part of my filmmaking that harkens to a more simpler commercial kind of taste, but then with this theres certainly a kind of avant-garde, abstract, existential element to it.
I could not blot out hope, for hope belongs to the future.
Whether you think of it as heavenly or as earthly, if you love life immortality is no consolation for death.
No phallic hero, no matter what he does to himself or to another to prove his courage, ever matches the solitary, existential courage of the woman who gives birth.
Jesus clearly believed in the reality of Satan and other principalities and powers. Now, I have very compelling historical, philosophical, and existential reasons for concluding that Jesus is Lord, and if I confess him to be Lord, I don't see how I can consider myself in a position to ever correct his theology, especially about such a foundational theological matter!
The earthly meaning of eternal life was death, and she refused to die.
I have an existential map. It has 'You are here' written all over it.
I reject the idea that there is some sort of existential "clash of civilizations. " I am an interventionist, but not a militarist. War should always be a last resort.
Like great works, deep feelings always mean more than they are conscious of saying.
I am afraid of abandonment, and, if you will, in a really existential way, being exposed as a fraud. Everyone's afraid of it, and I definitely am. This is a fear that motivates. Oh, and heights. And getting stabbed.
Terrorism is really the only existential threat to America as we know it - as a free country that plays a leading role in the world.
Hezbollah, Hamas, Al-Qaeda, they all have ties to Iranian money. I think they are the biggest exist - existential threat. Russia could be up there, but it would probably be to one of our NATO allies rather than the homeland.
I am gripped by an existential panic.