Existential Anxiety Quotes

There's a real existential anxiety at having to exist not just in a generalised social framework, but a capitalist social framework. ~ Autre Ne Veut

Existential anxiety of doubt drives the person toward the creation of certitude of systems of meaning, which are supported by tradition and authority. Neurotic anxiety builds a narrow castle of certitude which can be defended with the utmost certainty. ~ Paul Tillich

... there is also an underlying, less specific fear - what some might call an ontological or existential anxiety - that shrouds our days and seeps into our dreams. We feel empty and seek meaning. We feel empty and seek meaning. We yearn and know not what we yearn for. There is a black hole at the center of our understanding that engulfs and crushes our every attempt to explore it. Something is missing. ~ Jesse Browner

Awareness of freedom and responsibility creates anxiety, which is also referred to as anguish or angst. Aspects of romantic attachments can relieve anxieties. For example, Mario Mikulincer et al. argue that loving relationships can act as a "death-anxiety buffering mechanism", since the sense of security, protection, comfort, self-esteem, and social validation that close relationships provide may serve as defensive devices with respect to existential anxiety about the threat of mortality. ~ Skye Cleary

Some may be more fortunate than others, and many might feel more like second bests, not sure how to survive. Not seeing the light on their path, they keep on living with fear. Albeit social security systems may be supportive existential anxiety subsists, crushing their identity. Only by converting 'fear' into a challenge, we can grit our teeth, strengthen resilience, and brighten up the dimness in our minds. ("A new life with Schengen"") ~ Erik Pevernagie

People still have existential anxiety. It just may not be expressed in Hebraic idiom. ~ Woody Allen

We are always doing something to cover up our basic existential anxiety. Some people live that way until the day they die. ~ Joko Beck

I wonder if there has been a book written on toes - the bottom parts of a body are just as important as the top parts. Each chapter would focus on one of the ten toes and each would inspire singular, existential commentary: the potential of our toes as leaders, the solidity of our little instruments, the dangers of relating size and value. It would be called The Toe Manifesto and people would be interested in reading it because, after all, it is the toe that goes forward first and foremost, and the toe that helps to tell us if our bodies are hot or cold - in other words, the toe experiences far more than we give it credit for. ~ Meia Geddes

What could I say? Maybe this: the man hunched over his motorcycle can focus only on the present instant of his flight; he is caught in a fragment of time cut off from both the past and the future; he is wrenched from the continuity of time; he is outside time; in other words, he is in a state of ecstasy; in that state he is unaware of his age, his wife, his children, his worries, and so he has no fear, because the source of fear is in the future, and a person freed of the future has nothing to fear. ~ Milan Kundera

I have understood now that after feelings of disappointment subside, and one gains perspective, these experiences can change our ways of thinking, and bring us face to face with existential issues. When that happens, we need to embrace the events and analyze how we responded - did we allow them to merely roll over us like waves, or did we dive deeper into the matter and use it to gain insights into ourselves? ~ A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Why should a man intentionally live his life with one kind of anxiety followed by another? ~ Imbolo Mbue

Relativity was a highly technical new theory that gave new meanings to familiar concepts and even to the nature of the theory itself. The general public looked upon relativity as indicative of the seemingly incomprehensible modern era, educated scientists despaired of ever understanding what Einstein had done, and political ideologues used the new theory to exploit public fears and anxieties-all of which opened a rift between science and the broader culture that continues to expand today. ~ David C. Cassidy

'Ikiru' is existential but with a lot of tenderness. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Once you make the decision to keep fighting for change, the range of possibilities for discovering who you are can be are endless. By experimenting with new ways of doing things, you will eventually discover your full potential. By enduring your anxiety and consistently risking your best effort, you will achieve more than you ever believed possible. No, you won't be able to change everything. But you will have realized that you have spent far too long holding back your own potential. ~ Art E. Berg

Sadly, the goal of many Christian parents is merely "to raise a good kid." Through moral training and consistent discipline, they might even rear a child of whom they are proud. He may never cause them any real heartache but still not be useful to Christ. His materialism, impatience, impulsiveness, anxiety, stubbornness, or any other fleshly attitudes and actions can disqualify him from usefulness to Christ. In that case, the biblical parenting goal has not been reached, even though the child never got into serious trouble or never seriously embarrassed his parents. ~ Jim Berg

But I was living my life sideway. I did not act on what I wanted, I did not say the things I thought, and being so stifled and clamped all the time left me exhausted; no matter what I was doing, I was always imagining something else. ~ Curtis Sittenfeld

Limiting one's desires actually helps to cure one of fear. 'Cease to hope … and you will cease to fear.' … Widely different [as fear and hope] are, the two of them march in unison like a prisoner and the escort he is handcuffed to. Fear keeps pace with hope … both belong to a mind in suspense, to a mind in a state of anxiety through looking into the future. Both are mainly due to projecting our thoughts far ahead of us instead of adapting ourselves to the present. ~ Seneca

I think young children in the Western middle classes are objects of incredible anxiety. ~ Anne Enright

Wounds to the soul didn't just bleed; they ate at your very being. They fed on everything good, everything right, until you were hollow. ~ Sadie Allen

Anxiety is the illness of our age. We worry about ourselves, our family, our friends, our work, and our state of the world. If we allow worry to fill our hearts, sooner or later we will get sick. ~ Nhat Hanh

.,,women are numbed enough to endure rough sex acts through extreme humiliation. When alcohol isn't enough and the pain spirals into addiction, porn stars are sent to local doctors in conspiracy with the porn industry to receive prescriptions for Vicodin, Xanax, Valium and other anti-anxiety drugs to help them cope with the trauma. ~ Shelley Lubben

I mistrust all systematizers and avoid them. the will to a system is a lack of integrity. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I feel like a lot of the female relationships I see on TV or in movies are in some way free of the kind of jealousy and anxiety and posturing that has been such a huge part of my female friendships, which I hope lessens a little bit with age. ~ Lena Dunham

When machines fail, when technology fails, when the conventional religion fails, people have got to have something. Even a zombin lurching through the night can seem pretty cheerful compared to the existential comedy/horror of the ozone layer dissolving under the combined assult of a million flurocarbon spray cans of deoderant. - The Mist ~ Stephen King

Dear Stranger, I'm going to tell you now that if you are here to stay, I will ask for too much. ~ Cariza Opana

Sometimes it helps to live through it," I told her. "Find a time when nobody will bother you, and imagine it. Imagine the worst-case scenario in as much detail as you can manage. Let yourself live through it; feel the fear, feel the pain. It's a terrible thing to put yourself through, but once it's done, the anxiety goes away. It never disappears completely, but it leaves you alone enough so you can function. ~ Ilona Andrews

God's Peace (Jer. 16:5) God's peace is unmistakable. Regardless of the circumstances, there is an abiding confidence that all is well. When God chooses to remove His peace, anxiety and fear prevail and nothing can calm the spirit. ~ Richard Blackaby

The "mood of the nation," in 1972, was so overwhelmingly vengeful, greedy, bigoted, and blindly reactionary that no presidential candidate who even faintly reminded "typical voters" of the fear & anxiety they'd felt during the constant "social upheavals" of the 1960s had any chance at all of beating Nixon last year--not even Ted Kennedy--because the pendulum "effect" that began with Nixon's slim victory in '68 was totally irreversible by 1972. After a decade of left-bent chaos, the Silent Majority was so deep in a behavorial sink that their only feeling for politics was a powerful sense of revulsion. All they wanted in the White House was a man who would leave them alone and do anything necessary to bring calmness back into their lives ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Dying is more terrifying than actual death. ~ Stefan Bolea

Braveness is resistance to concern, mastery of panic - not absense of anxiety. ~ Mark Twain

The punishment of every disordered mind is its own disorder. ~ Augustine Of Hippo

It's really not your business what others are doing. What matters is what you're doing. ~ Clyde Lee Dennis

Two monks were once travelling together down a wet and muddy road. The rain was torrential, making it almost impossible to walk along the path. As the two men were trudging along, a beautiful girl dressed in silk appeared. She was unable to cross the path and looked distressed.

"Let me help you", said the older monk. He picked her up and carried her over the mud. His younger male companion did not utter a word that night until they reached their lodging temple. Then after hours of restrained conversation, the younger monk exclaimed: "We monks do not touch females; it is too tempting for us and can create a bad outcome". The older monk looked into the younger monks eyes and said, "I left the girl on the road. Are you still carrying her?"

This ancient Zen story illustrates beautifully how so many of us are trapped in the habit of constantly "re-living" the past in our minds, thus dishonouring the present moment. The young monk wasted hours distressing himself with judgment, speculation, anxiety, resentment and ultimately self-perpetuated unhappiness as a direct result of not being mindful. ~ Christopher Dines

But, my God, how could I have thought it? How could I have been so blind, when everything had been taken by another already, when nothing was mine; when, in fact, her very tenderness to me, her anxiety, her love ... yes, love for me, was nothing else but joy at the thought of seeing another man so soon, desire to include me, too, in her happiness?... ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

In our day many people are broad but shallow. Agnosticism, anxiety, and emptiness have gripped much of our world. ~ Billy Graham

Unhappiness is a warped and distorted perception of reality. When a man says he is unhappy with his life and gives a written list of why he is dissatisfied, he has given a frank account of the state of his mind. If his mind is neglected and starved from stillness of thought, the nature of his thinking will reflect turbulence, anxiety and a lack of fulfilment.
However, when he is able to transcend thought, by being the observer (the witness) of his thinking and can take control of his mind, tranquility begins to flow through him. He is no longer a slave to his mental concepts, distinctions and limiting beliefs. ~ Christopher Dines

A man who isn't into you, isn't into you. Don't force it - let him go. Maybe he's already got a partner. Maybe the timing's wrong. Maybe he's got deep ambivalence about whether he wants a relationship. Maybe he's hoping he can use you for sex - then give up in disgust when you aren't had so easily. Maybe he just doesn't love you. Maybe he's dealing with anxiety, or job loss, or the ex he can't forget. The truth is, none of that matters! The reason is not the important thing. The behavior is. No matter why, when a man doesn't want you, give up on him - he is saving you from wasting your time and emotions. ~ Duana Welch

Alcohol has its own well-know defects as a medication for depression but no one has ever suggested - ask any doctor - that it is not the most effective anti-anxiety agent yet known. ~ Joan Didion

Really living like Christ will not mean reward, social recognition, and an assured income, but difficulties, discrimination, solitude, anxiety. Here, too, the basic experience of the cross applies: the wider we open our hearts to others, the more audibly we intervene against the injustice that rules over us, the more difficult our lives in the rich unjust society will become. ~ Dorothee Solle

There is a sense in which all cognition can be said to be motivated. One is motivated to understand the world, to be in touch with reality, to remove doubt, etc. Alternately one might say that motivation is an aspect of cognition itself. Nevertheless, motives like wanting to find the truth, not wanting to be mistaken, etc., tend to align with epistemic goals in a way that many other commitments do not. As we have begun to see, all reasoning may be inextricable from emotion. But if a person's primary motivation in holding a belief is to hue to a positive state of mind, to mitigate feelings of anxiety, embarrassment, or guilt for instance. This is precisely what we mean by phrases like "wishful thinking", and "self-deception". Such a person will of necessity be less responsive to valid chains of evidence and argument that run counter to the beliefs he is seeking to maintain. To point out non-epistemic motives in an others view of the world, therefore, is always a criticism, as it serves to cast doubt on a persons connection to the world as it is. ~ Sam Harris

What is the ideal for mental health, then? A lived, compelling illusion that does not lie about life, death, and reality; one honest enough to follow its own commandments: I mean, not to kill, not to take the lives of others to justify itself. ~ Ernest Becker

I think Woody Allen calls it 'anxiety of influence.' When you're in your formative years and you watch a movie that makes you want to make movies ... For Wes Anderson, it's Truffaut. I'm sure for P.T. Anderson it was Scorsese and Jonathan Demme. ~ Max Winkler

And isn't that how you become tender, vulnerable? The tissue-softening marination of your own mind, the quicksand of mental indulgence? ~ Carmen Maria Machado

Peace is not something you can force on anything or anyone ... much less upon one's own mind. It is like trying to quiet the ocean by pressing upon the waves. Sanity lies in somehow opening to the chaos, allowing anxiety, moving deeply into the tumult, diving into the waves, where underneath, within, peace simply is. ~ Gerald May

It is love. I will have to run or hide.

The walls of its prison rise up, as in a twisted dream. The beautiful mask has changed, but as always it is the one. Of what use are my talismans: the literary exercises, the vague erudition, the knowledge of words used by the harsh North to sing its seas and swords, the temperate friendship, the galleries of the Library, the common things, the habits, the young love of my mother, the militant shadow of my dead, the timeless night, the taste of dreams?

Being with you or being without you is the measure of my time.

Now the pitcher breaks about the spring, now the man arises to the sound of birds, now those that watch at the windows have gone dark, but the darkness has brought no peace.

It, I know, is love: the anxiety and the relief at hearing your voice, the expectation and the memory, the horror of living in succession.

It is love with its mythologies, with its tiny useless magics.

There exists a corner that I dare not cross.

Now the armies confine me, the hordes.

(This room is unreal; she has not seen it.)

The name of a woman gives me away.

A woman hurts me in all of my body. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

Your path might be a lonely one ... but, you are NOT alone! ~ Martin R. Lemieux

Everything eats something else."
I swing my head towards him. "What eats you?"
He raises an eyebrow, giving me a taste of my own medicine. "Existential despair. ~ Rainbow Rowell, Wayward Son

I gave you too much power because I always yearned for your love, but I guess the love card wasn't meant for me to have in my life. I always thought I was dealt a bad hand because that card never appeared in the deck. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

Anxiety, in short, is a conscious feeling. It can arise in a bottom-up way, driven by activity in defensive circuits or from higher processes that conceptualize worry, either about an uncertain future or about existence itself. ~ Joseph E. Ledoux

It seems like you are used to blowing down my house of cards that I carefully built. I isolate myself and cried a lot of tears because of you. My heart has been battered and broken too many times because of you. Honestly, my self-esteem is shot down as low as I can go because of you. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

No one can create agreements in your heart without your approval. ~ Rachel Marie Martin

I dislike The Exorcist, and I found it a warning sign of the dangers in a furious cinematic talent putting the audience through it (a Hitchcock phrase) without purpose, or without the nagging moral anxiety that activated Hitch. You see, I don't think William Friedkin believes in the Devil, or cares about him. I think he found exorcism a pretext for a gross-out and he calculated there was an audience for it, or a crowd ready to be challenged. Maybe I'm too much of an atheist to stand religion being so thrashed. ~ Edward Jay Epstein

The best treatment for stress, anxiety, and depression is to change your perception by knowing that all of this is coming from a fear induced illusion. ~ Debasish Mridha

While the realm of no materiality was a precious fruit of meditation, it did not help resolve the fundamental problem of birth and death, nor did it liberate one from all suffering and anxiety. It did not lead to total liberation. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

My anxieties as to behavior are futile, ever more so, to infinity. If the other, incidentally or negligently, gives the telephone number of a place where he or she can be reached at certain times, I immediately grow baffled: should I telephone or shouldn't I? (It would do no good to tell me that I can telephone - that is the objective, reasonable meaning of the message - for it is precisely this permission I don't know how to handle.) What is futile is what apparently has and will have no consequence. But for me, an amorous subject, everything which is new, everything which disturbs, is received not as a fact but in the aspect of a sign which must be interpreted. From the lover's point of view, the fact becomes consequential because it is immediately transformed into a sign: it is the sign, not the fact, which is consequential (by its aura). If the other has given me this new telephone number, what was that the sign of? Was it an invitation to telephone right away, for the pleasure of the call, or only should the occasion arise, out of necessity? My answer itself will be a sign, which the other will inevitably interpret, thereby releasing, between us, a tumultuous maneuvering of images. Everything signifies: by this proposition, I entrap myself, I bind myself in calculations, I keep myself from enjoyment.
Sometimes, by dint of deliberating about "nothing" (as the world sees it), I exhaust myself; then I try, in reaction, to return -- like a drowning man who stamps on th ~ Roland Barthes

Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able, - to dress and entertain, and order things ~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman