Les faits ne sont rien, ils n'existent pas, il ne subsiste de nous que des Ide¤  es. Deeds are nothing. They do not exist.Only our ideas survive.

-Balzac, Honore¤   de
  Louis Lambert.

Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it.

-Burroughs,William S(eward)
  Painting and Guns,'The Creative Observer'.

A man said to the universe: 'Sir, I exist!' 'However,'replied the universe, 'The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation.'

-Crane, Stephen
  A Man Said to the Universe.

Agnoscam fieri non posse ut existam talis naturae qualis sum, nempe ideam Dei in me habens, nisi revera Deus etiam existeret, Deus, inquam, ille idem cujus idea in me est. I could not possibly exist with the nature I actually have, that is, one endowed with the idea of God, unless there really is a God; the very God, I mean, of whom I have an idea.

-Descartes, Rene¤
Meditationes, 3rd meditation (translated by G E M Anscombe and Peter Geach)

It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us.

-DeVries, Peter
  The Mackerel Plaza, ch.1.

I repeat†that all power is a trustöthat we are accountable for its exerciseöthat, from the people, and for the people, all springs, and all must exist.

-Disraeli, Benjamin, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
^7  Vivian Grey, bk.6, ch.10.

The echo began in some indescribable way to undermine her hold on life.Coming at a moment when she chanced to be fatigued, it had managed to murmur, 'Pathos, piety, courageöthey exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value.'

-Forster, E(dward) M(organ)
  A Passage to India, ch.14.

Facts do not cease to exist because theyare ignored.

-Huxley, Aldous Leonard
  Proper Studies,'Note on Dogma'.

My culture and my language have the right to exist, and no one has the authority to dismiss that.

-Kelman,James
  Speech at the Booker Prize award ceremony,11 Oct.

If evil does not exist, what isgoing to happen to literature?

-Pritchett, Sir V(ictor) S(awdon)
Mr Beluncle, ch.23.

Innovationmost ofthetime issimply taking A,B,C and D, which already exist, and putting them together in a form called E.

-Schiller, Friedrich
  In Fortune,14 Nov.

Es gibt nur einen Irrtum, und es ist der, dass wir dasind, um glu«  cklich zu sein. There is only one inborn error, and that is the notion that we exist in order to be happy.

-Schopenhauer, Arthur
  DieWelt alsWille undVorstellung (TheWorld asWill and Representation), vol.2, ch.49 (translated by E F J Payne).

We were obsessed by the feeling that this was the supreme cause of our time. The cause of poets and of writers.The cause of freedom. And that unlessthe cause of anti-Fascism was won, unless Fascism was defeated, we would be unable to exist as writers.

-Spender, Sir Stephen Harold
  Speaking on the ITV seriesThe Spanish CivilWar, no.3, 'Battleground for idealists'.

Quicquid est, in Deo est, et nihil sine Deo esse necque concipi potest. Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can exist or be conceived without God.

-Spinoza, Baruch also known as Benedict de Spinoza
  Ethics, bk.1, prop.15.

I believe in the Church, one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church; and nowhere does it exist.

-Temple,William
Attributed.