Tim's Favorite Quotes, part 3

Do I Exist?
And so what if I do?

My friend Charles was at the last call in the bar last night, along with several philosophers such as Plato, Descartes, Niebuhr and Hegel. The bartender asked Descartes if he wanted another drink. He said, "I think not" and disappeared.

Engraving of Descartes, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Descartes-s-w.JPG, PD

"Whether the life we are living will end up in extinction or in the attainment of eternal life is a matter of the utmost importance for life itself. . . . Our ordinary mode of being is restricted to these levels of natural or cultural life. But it in in breaking through that ordinary mode of being and overturning it . . . in pressing us back to the elemental source of life . . . that religion becomes something we need. . . . religion poses as a starting point the question: 'For what purpose do I exist?'"
— Keiji Nishitani, Religion and Nothingness, 2-3.

"The interesting thing about greed is that although the underlying motive is to seek satisfaction, even after obtaining the object of one's desire, one is still not satisfied, it becomes limitless or boundless and that leads to trouble. On the other hand, if one has a strong sense of contentment, it doesn't matter whether one obtains the object or not; either way, one is still content."
— Tenzin Gyatso, the XIV Dalai Lama, on Facebook 2 May 2010.

"Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions."
— Jesus of Nazareth, Luke 12.15 (NRSV)

Carey Linde, Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu, 2004, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dalai_Lama_and_Bishop_Tutu._Carey_Linde.jpg, CC-SA

revised 2 May 2010; original 21 August 2009