#existence

Only a literary work that reveals an unknown fragment of human existence has a reason for being. ↗

— Milan Kundera

#existence #fragment #human #human existence #literary

For a novelist, a given historic situation is an anthropologic laboratory in which he explores his basic question: What is human existence? ↗

— Milan Kundera

#existence #explores #given #his #historic

The light that radiates from the great novels time can never dim, for human existence is perpetually being forgotten by man and thus the novelists' discoveries, however old they may be, will never cease to astonish. ↗

— Milan Kundera

#being #being forgotten #cease #dim #discoveries

There are metaphysical problems, problems of human existence, that philosophy has never known how to grasp in all their concreteness and that only the novel can seize. ↗

— Milan Kundera

#grasp #how #human #human existence #known

We are born, so to speak, twice over; born into existence, and born into life; born a human being, and born a man. ↗

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

#born #existence #human #human being #into

You can take things that Jimi Hendrix took, from Curtis Mayfield or from Buddy Guy for example, because we are all children of everything, even Picasso. But if you want to stand out, you have to learn to crystallize your existence and create your own fingerprints. ↗

— Carlos Santana

#buddy #children #create #crystallize #curtis

Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment. ↗

— George Santayana

#experiment #fails #happiness #lamentable #life

The effort of art is to keep what is interesting in existence, to recreate it in the eternal. ↗

— George Santayana

#effort #eternal #existence #interesting #keep

The existence of any evil anywhere at any time absolutely ruins a total optimism. ↗

— George Santayana

#any #anywhere #evil #existence #optimism

It's not my responsibility to be beautiful. I'm not alive for that purpose. My existence is not about how desirable you find me. ↗

— Warsan Shire

#existence #feminism #self-esteem #beauty