"The third univerſal is appetite; every perfect and imperfect living creature acquires ſuſtenance to eate and drink. For exiſtential or ſenſual, I grant many, that there is a Sun that ſhineth, that the fire heateth, &c. yet a blind man and the Paralytick denies both."
— 1656, [attributed to Philip King], The Surfeit. To A B C, London: […] Edw[ard] Dod […], →OCLC, §. 4, page 33:
"[T]he essential cause of fiendish guilt, when it makes itself existential and peripheric— […] I find the only explanation of a moral phænomenon not very uncommon in the last moments of condemned felons—viz. the obstinate denial, not of the main guilt, which might be accounted for by ordinary motives, but of some particular act, which had been proved beyond all possibility of doubt, and attested by the criminal's own accomplices and fellow-sufferers in their last confessions: […]"
— 1818, S[amuel] T[aylor] Coleridge, “Essay II”, in The Friend: A Series of Essays, […] to Aid in the Formation of Fixed Principles in Politics, Morals, and Religion, with Literary Amusements Interspersed. […], new edition, volume III, London: […] [S. Curtis] for Rest Fenner, […], →OCLC, footnote, pages 96–97:
"Most of the subjects had terminal cancer, and several died within a year after the trial—but not before having a mental adventure that appeared to have eased the existential gloom of their last days."
— 2014 March 3, Benedict Carey, “LSD, reconsidered for therapy”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 24 Aug 2025:
"[Karl] Jaspers' main concern has been with existential dread, which he regards not as a symptom of mental illness, but as a result of rejecting religious faith. He proposes that man's only way out of existential dread is through a "leap into faith" which reconciles man with himself and with God, and provides an experience of the absolute which transcends mere sense experience."
— 1977, Joan E. Sieber, “Development of the Concept of Anxiety”, in Joan E. Sieber; Harold F. O’Neil, Jr.; Sigmund Tobias, Anxiety, Learning, and Instruction, New York, N.Y.; Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, published 2009, →DOI, →ISBN:
"Here, therefore, we seek to assemble and assess the evidence to provide an overview of how serious trade is as an existential threat to avian taxa in Sundaic Indonesia."
— 2015, J[ames] A. Eaton [et al.], “Trade-driven Extinctions and Near-extinctions of Avian Taxa in Sundaic Indonesia”, in Forktail: Journal of Asian Ornithology, volume 31, Bedford, Bedfordshire: Oriental Bird Club, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 1, column 1: