existential conflict Quotes

The "paradox" is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality "ought to be."

Life it seems a struggle between what we think and what we see

It's not a matter of rejection (of Israel's existence). Israel is here, present by power.

There is no man, let him be aware of it or not, who is not a combatant in this hot contest; no one who does not take an active part in the responsibility of the defeat or victory. The prisoner in his chains and the king on his throne, the poor and the rich, the healthy and the infirm, the wise and the ignorant, the captive and the free, the old man and the child, the civilized and the savage, share equally in the combat. Every word that is pronounced, is either inspired by God or by the world, and necessarily proclaims, implicitly or explicitly, but always clearly, the glory of the one or the triumph of the other. In this singular warfare we all fight through forced enlistment; here the system of substitutes or volunteers finds no place. In it is unknown the exception of sex or age; here no attention is paid to him who says, I am the son of a poor widow; nor to the mother of the paralytic, nor to the wife of the cripple. In this warfare all men born of woman are soldiers.

The essence of humanity's spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another. Is there a way to erase the dilemma, to resolve the contradictions between the transcendentalist and the empiricist world views?

I believe that there is good. I believe there is evil. Do I believe that they come from God who is watching us conduct myriad never-ending wars and looks benignly on because there's higher purpose to all of this? I don't think so.

If God himself wills such misery on people whom I love, then I say I will deal with him

Our conflict is in relationship, at all levels of our existence; and the understanding of this relationship, completely and extensively, is the only real problem that each one has.

I remember the first article I ever wrote, and I saw my name in the paper, and I already knew I was undocumented, and I was thinking: 'How can they now say I don't exist?'

The whole existence of man is a ceaseless duel between the forces of life and death.

Reality and love are almost contradictory for me.

The sad truth is that man's real life consists of a complex of inexorable opposites - day and night, birth and death, happiness and misery, good and evil. We are not even sure that one will prevail against the other, that good will overcome evil, or joy defeat pain. Life is a battleground. It always has been and always will be; and if it were not so, existence would come to an end.

Wars are no longer waged in the name of a sovereign who must be defended; they are waged on behalf of the existence of everyone; entire populations are mobilized for the purpose of wholesale slaughter in the name of life necessity: massacres have become vital.

We should feel dissonance; we are, after all, immortals trapped in mortal surroundings. We lack unity because long ago a gap fissured open between our mortal and immortal parts; theologians trace the fault line back to the Fall.

Part of me would just like to relax and have one job that pays me the amount I need to survive. And another part of me wants the creativity that comes out of struggle and frustration and fear. It's a never-ending cycle, which must be how I want it, on some level.

The history of mankind is the history of our misunderstandings with god, for he doesn't understand us, and we don't understand him.

Those who speak of our culture as dead or dying have a quarrel with life, and I think they cannot understand its terms, but must endlessly repeat the projection of their own desires.

All forms of violence are quests for identity. When you live on the frontier, you have no identity. You're a nobody.

Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities.

The universe, in a big bang mode, is still expanding, which means it's cooling down, and evolution seems to be going against this; we're almost battling it. That led me on to a more creative, philosophical way of thinking, which is what led into influencing some of the songs, which is, maybe this is what our struggle is.

I believe that in a contest between the living and the almost living, the latter must, if necessary, give way to the will of the former.

The truth is that reason is the enemy of life.

How could one create life with someone who represented death?

You purchase pain with all that joy can give and die of nothing but a rage to live.