Tag: existentialist

What was He (She?) doing before He made heaven and earth?

~ Live & Learn ~ 7 Comments

Augustine is frank about his ignorance of the divine and natural order and dogged in his pursuit of clarity. His conclusions and his introspective method would inform centuries of subsequent philosophers, from Descartes (whose cogito ergo sum—I think therefore I am—is a direct echo of Augustine’s dubito ergo sum, I doubt therefore I am) to Heidegger to Wittgenstein. He grapples with the Beginning: “I will set about replying to the questioner who asks, ‘What was God doing before he made heaven and earth?’ But I will not respond with that joke someone is said to have made: ‘He is getting hell ready for people who inquisitively peer into deep matters.’

~ Alan Burdick, “Why Time Flies: A Mostly Scientific Investigation” (Simon & Schuster, January 24, 2017)

Photo: via Mennyfox55

It is soft, so soft, so slow.

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float

“I exist. It is soft, so soft, so slow. And light: it seems as though it suspends in the air. It moves.”
~ Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 – 1980) was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism, and one of the leading figures in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism.
He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature and refused it, saying that he always declined official honors and that “a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution”. (Source: wiki)

Credits: Image – thank you Sundog.  Quote – yama-bato