Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Anything that comes into existence must be caused by something external to itself.
In plain terms
Things that start existing need an outside cause.
What can you take from it?
Existence requires an external cause.

Where it applies

  • philosophical inquiry
  • physics
  • metaphysics

Putting it to work

  • trace origins
  • identify causes
  • question existence

Questions to consider

  • What caused your existence?
  • Can anything exist without a cause?

Another view

Some philosophical views argue for self-caused entities.

More from Avicenna

  1. An ignorant doctor is the aide-de-camp of death.

    Permalink to quote #3
  2. Medicine considers the human body as to the means by which it is cured and by which it is driven away from health.

    Permalink to quote #5
  3. Those who deny the first principle should be flogged or burned until they admit that it is not the same thing to be burned and not burned, or whipped and not w…

    Permalink to quote #2

Related quotes

  1. It is not in the world of ideas that life is lived. Life is lived for better or worse in life, and to a man in life, his life can be no more absurd than it can…

    Archibald MacLeishArchibald MacLeish quote #1
  2. There comes a point when a dream becomes reality and reality becomes a dream.

    Frances FarmerFrances Farmer quote #3
  3. ?Que os espanta, si fue mi maestro un sueno, y estoy temiendo, en mis ansias, que he de despertar y hallarme otra vez en mi cerrada prision? Y cuando no sea, e…

    Pedro Calderon de la BarcaPedro Calderon de la Barca quote #5