Quotes About Existence

The indifference of the everyday gets the better of us all.

A crying baby is the purest expression of the inanity of being human.

What Kant refers to as depression is simply this stark realization: that thought is only incidentally human. It would take a later generation of philosophers to derive the conclusion of this: that thought thinks us, not the reverse. Legend

But already there is some ambiguity, for does black designate a "color" that does not reflect light (and if so, why label it a color?), or does black designate the "color" that results in the total absence of light? Without light, no color, and without color, there is only black – and yet black is not a color.

For every un-universe, then, an un-philosophy that must also negate itself.

It seems to have no motive, no vendetta, no program of action, other than simply that of "being ooze.

Whenever it occurs, however it occurs, pessimism has but one effect: it introduces humility into thought. It undermines the innumerable, self-aggrandizing postures that constitute the human being. Pessimism is the humility of the species that has named itself, thought furtively stumbling upon its own limitations on black wings of futility.

The logic of pessimism moves through three refusals: a no-saying to the worst (refusal of the world-for-us, or Schopenhauer's tears); a yes-saying to the worst (refusal of the world-in-itself, or Nietzsche's laughter); and a no-saying to the for-us and the in-itself (a double refusal, or Cioran's sleep). Crying, laughing, sleeping — what other responses are adequate to a life that is so indifferent?

Is there yet another meaning of "black" beyond this? There is, but it is a difficult thought to think, and nearly impossible to know, though it does exist (actually it doesn't exist, though the thought of its not-existing does).

A bit of philosophizing leads to a wonderment of life. A lot of philosophizing leads to a contempt of it.

Human culture: a kind of incessant ringing in the ears.

Philosophy as reducible to an alibi for one's existence - for all existents. Hubris. Fear.

The longer we suffer, the more we dwell on suffering – eventually suffering and the thought of suffering eclipse each other entirely…

Consciousness is nothing more, he writes, than "a flash of lightning between two eternities of darkness.

Signs of the Times. It is more important to be seen than to exist.

An argument for or against suicide? One lives, in spite of life.

A philosopher – Shestov I think – once noted that, since philosophy deals with the most difficult and important issues concerning existence, philosophers think themselves the most important people. He then notes: "A bank clerk, who is always handing money out, might just as well consider himself a millionaire.

Falling asleep. Waking up.

From the austere negations of the ancient Indian materialists, to the funereal perambulations of Schopenhauer, pessimism also has its own ontological argument: existence is that beyond which nothing worse can be conceived.

T]he devastating possibility that "wasting time" and "passing time" amount to the same thing.

One senses that for Schopenhauer, the world does exist, and it's horrible, and there's not much one can do about it.

Freedom is a difficult burden to bear in an absurd world.

Joy might be God- in the marrow of our bones.

The sum total of pain in the world is unlimited.