Nonbeing Quotes

Our place is somewhere between being and nonbeing - between two fictions. (Emil Cioran)
Nonbeing must in some sense be, otherwise what is it that there is not? This tangled doctrine might be nicknamed Plato's beard; historically it has proved tough, frequently dulling the edge of Occam's razor. View quote
Willard van Orman Quine
The vision of the artist or the poet is the intermediate determinant between the subject (the person) and the objective pole (the world-waiting-to-be). It will be nonbeing until the poet's struggle brings forth an answer - meaning. The greatness of a poem or a painting is not that it portrays the thing observed or experienced, but that it portrays the artist's or the poet's vision cued off by his encounter with the reality. Hence the poem or the painting is unique, original, never to be duplicated. No matter how many times Monet returned to paint the cathedral at Rouen, each canvas was a new painting expressing a new vision. View quote
Rollo May
Everything is evil. I mean, everything that is, is wicked; every existing thing is an evil; everything exists for a wicked end. Existence is a wickedness and is ordained for wickedness. Evil is the end, the final purpose, of the universe...The only good is nonbeing; the only really good thing is the thing that is not, things that are not things; all things are bad. View quote
Giacomo Leopardi
At risk of arousing the resentment of my colored brothers, I will say that the black is not a man. There is a zone of nonbeing, an extraordinary sterile and arid region, an utterly naked declivity where an authentic upheaval can be born. In most cases, the black man lacks the advantage of being able to accomplish this descent into real hell. View quote
Frantz Fanon
As we live our precarious lives on the brink of the void, constantly coming closer to a state of nonbeing, we are all too often aware of our fragitlity. View quote
Iris Murdoch
The second element in absolute faith is the dependence of the experience of nonbeing on the experience on being and the dependence of the experience of meaninglessness on the experience of meaning. even in the state of despair one has enough being to make despair possible. View quote
Paul Tillich
Virtue is the death of conscience because it is the habit of Good, and yet the ethic of the honest man infinitely prefers virtue to the noblest agonies of conscience. Thus, being poses nonbeing and eliminates it. There is only being. View quote
Jean-Paul Sartre
Every religion implies that it treats the problem of being and nonbeing, life and death. Their languages are different, but they speak about the same things. View quote
Mircea Eliade
The Three Oddest Words When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it. When I pronounce the word nothing, I make something no nonbeing can hold. View quote
Wisława Szymborska
A way can be a guide but not a fixed path names can be given but not permanent labels Nonbeing is called the beginning of heaven and earth being is called the mother of all things Always passionless thereby observe the subtle ever intent thereby observe the apparent These two come from the same source but differ in name both are considered mysteries The mystery of mysteries is the gateway of marvels. (Laozi)