#existence

Opinions are to the vast apparatus of social existence what oil is to machines: one does not go up to a turbine and pour machine oil over it; one applies a little to hidden spindles and joints that one has to know. ↗

— Walter Benjamin

#applies #does #existence #go #hidden

Homo sapiens, the only creature endowed with reason, is also the only creature to pin its existence on things unreasonable. ↗

— Henri Bergson

#creature #endowed #existence #homo #homo sapiens

What should I have known or written had I been a quiet, mercantile politician or a lord in waiting? A man must travel, and turmoil, or there is no existence. ↗

— George Byron

#existence #had #i #known #lord

All treaties between great states cease to be binding when they come in conflict with the struggle for existence. ↗

— Otto von Bismarck

#binding #cease #come #conflict #existence

Every great movement in the history of Western civilization from the Carolingian age to the nineteenth century has been an international movement which owed its existence and its development to the cooperation of many different peoples. ↗

— Christopher Dawson

#been #century #civilization #cooperation #development

By placing discretion in the hands of an official to grant or deny a license, such a statute creates a threat of censorship that by its very existence chills free speech. ↗

— Harry A. Blackmun

#chills #creates #deny #discretion #existence

My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. ↗

— Arthur Conan Doyle

#am #analysis #atmosphere #crave #dull

There is no real teacher who in practice does not believe in the existence of the soul, or in a magic that acts on it through speech. ↗

— Allan Bloom

#believe #does #existence #magic #practice

I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love. I felt in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life. ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#life-and-living #love #true #family

Today, you have the opportunity to transcend from a disempowered mindset of existence to an empowered reality of purpose-driven living. Today is a new day that has been handed to you for shaping. You have the tools, now get out there and create a masterpiece. ↗

— Steve Maraboli

#disempowered #existence #inspirational #living #masterpiece