Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, With too much weakness for the stoic's pride, He hangs between; in doubt to act or rest, In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer, Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err; Alike in ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little, or too much.

-Pope, Alexander
  An Essay on Man, epistle 2, l.1^12.

They had their being once and left a place to stand on.

-Purdy, Al
  Poems forAll theAnnettes,'Roblin Mills' (revised1972).

   Alle anderen Dinge mu«  ssen; der Mensch ist das Wesen, welches will. All other things must; man is the being who wills.

-Schiller, Friedrich
« 1794  Uber das Erhabene.

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.

-Shelley, Percy Bysshe
  'Ode to theWestWind', l.1^3.

Never being, but always at the edge of Being.

-Spender, Sir Stephen Harold
  'Never Being'.

Unaquaeque res, quantum in se est, in suo esse perseverare conatur. Everything in so far as it is in itself endeavours to persist in its own being.

-Spinoza, Baruch also known as Benedict de Spinoza
  Ethics, bk.3, prop.6.

Ex virtute absoluto agere nihil aliud in nobis est, quam ex ductu Rationis agere, vivere, suum esse conservare (haec tria idem significant) ex fundamento proprium utile quaerendi. To act absolutely according to virtue is nothing else in us than to act under the guidance of reason, to live so, and to preserve one's being (these three have the same meaning) onthebasis of seeking what isusefulto oneself.

-Spinoza, Baruch also known as Benedict de Spinoza
  Ethics, bk.4, prop.24.

Per Deum intelligo ens absolute infinitum, hoc est, substantiam constantem infinitis attributis, quorum unumquodque aeternam et infinitam essentiam exprimit. By God I mean a being absolutely infiniteöthat is, a substance consisting in infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality.

-Spinoza, Baruch also known as Benedict de Spinoza
  Ethics.

Be near me when my light is low, When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick And tingle; and the heart is sick, And all the wheels of Being slow. Be near me when the sensuous frame Is racked with pains that conquer trust; And Time, a maniac scattering dust, And Life, a Fury slinging flame.

-Tennyson
  In Memoriam A.H.H., canto 50, l.1^8.

Being is the great explainer.

-Thoreau, Henry David
  Journal entry, 26 Feb.

Neurosis is the way of avoiding non-being by avoiding being.

-Tillich, Paul Johannes
  The Courage to Be.

   I shook the habit off Entirely and for ever, and again In Nature's presence stood, as now I stand, A sensitive being, a creative soul.

-Wordsworth,William
^1805  The Prelude, bk.12, l.204^7 (published1850).

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, The holy time is quiet as a nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquillity; The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the sea: Listen! the mighty being is awake, And doth with his eternal motion make A sound like thunderöeverlastingly.

-Wordsworth,William
  'It is a beauteous evening calm and free', l.1^8 (published 1807).