A Quote by Gao Xingjian

What is essential is whether it is perceived and not whether it exists. To exist and yet not to be perceived is the same as not exist.

Gao Xingjian

Quote Topics

Essential Exist Exists Perceived Same Whether

Quote Author

Gao Xingjian
Chinese - Novelist
Born: January 4, 1940

Memory cannot exist without endurance of the things perceived, and the thing perceived cannot remain where it has never been.

William Harvey

This perceiving, active being is what I call mind, spirit, soul, or myself. By which words I do not denote any one of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from them, wherein they exist, or, which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived; for the existence of an idea consists in being perceived.

George Berkeley

One question you ask as a writer or any kind of artist when you start making something is, 'Does this have reason to exist in the world?' And you're reassured when you get little confirmations that people are pleased it did exist - whether they buy a ticket, whether it gets good reviews, whether it transfers.

Mike Bartlett

I say that when you have perceived or attained the goal, compromises, renunciations, do not exist. If you have seen the goal, compromise ceases to exist. It is then a question of a different attitude.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Whether the author intended a symbolic resonance to exist in her book is irrelevant. All that matters is whether it's there. Because the book does not exist for the benefit of the author, the book exists for the benefit of YOU. If we as readers can have a bigger and richer experience with the world as a result of reading a symbol and that symbol wasn't intended by the author, WE STILL WIN.

John Green

I think, in all fields, there's this motherhood pay penalty where, the second you become a mother - and this is true whether you give birth or adopt - you're perceived to not be as committed to your job. Whereas men are perceived as breadwinners who now need more money and promotions because they're fathers.

Nell Scovell

Does Big Brother exist?" "Of course he exists. The Party exists. Big Brother is the embodiment of the Party." "Does he exist in the same way as I exist?" "You do not exist.

George Orwell

Define the word exist, and you'll know whether God exists.

Bill Gaede

The philosophers of the Middle Ages demonstrated both that the Earth did not exist and also that it was flat. Today they are still arguing about whether the world exists, but they no longer dispute about whether it is flat.

Vilhjalmur Stefansson

When I talk about the realm of spirit, happiness, nirvana, enlightenment, I'm not talking about something ideal or imaginary. There are realms of light that exist, that have always existed and will always exist. They're much more solid than the transient perceived reality that you're currently experiencing

Frederick Lenz

Intuitive cognition of a thing is cognition that enables us to know whether the thing exists or does not exist, in such a way that, if the thing exists, then the intellect immediately judges that it exists and evidently knows that it exists, unless the judgment happens to be impeded through the imperfection of this cognition.

William of Ockham

Every day, we try to pretend that we haven't perceived that moment, that it doesn't exist; that today is the same as yesterday and will be the same as tomorrow. But if people really pay attention to their everyday lives, they will discover that magic moment.

Paulo Coelho

[I believe] that animals have a worth in and of themselves, and that they are not inferior to human beings but rather just different from us, and that they really don't exist for us nor do they belong to us...it should not be a question of how they should be treated within the context of their usefulness, or perceived usefulness, to us, but rather whether we have a right to use them at all.

Ingrid Newkirk

Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.

Denis Diderot

The question between the materialists and me is not, whether things have a real existence out of the mind of this or that person, but whether they have an absolute existence, distinct from being perceived by God, and exterior to all minds.

George Berkeley

Shame doesn't exist as an emotion without the projected or perceived sense of judgment coming from somewhere else.