Quotes About Existentialism

Can an ass be tragic? To perish under a burden one can neither bear nor throw off? The case of the philosopher.

To sacrifice God for nothingness—this paradoxical mystery of the ultimate cruelty has been reserved for the rising generation; we all know something thereof already.

All is alike, nothing is worth while, knowledge strangleth.

It is my fate to have to be the first decent human being. I have a terrible fear that I shall one day be pronounced holy.

Nihilism stands at the door: whence comes this uncanniest of all guests?

Mutter ich bin dumm.

Nihilism. It is ambiguous: A. Nihilism as a sign of increased power of the spirit: as active nihilism. B. Nihilism as decline and recession of the power of the spirit: as passive nihilism.

Und wenn du lange genug in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein.

For, why is the triumph of Nihilism inevitable now? Because the very values current amongst us to-day will arrive at their logical conclusion in Nihilism,—because Nihilism is the only possible outcome of our greatest values and ideals,—because we must first experience Nihilism before we can realise what the actual worth of these "values" was....

Omul e doar o funie, întins? între bestie ÅŸi Supraom — o funie peste un abis

A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.

One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.

Starting with the lyrics, 'Only scared of myself and the truth in the stars/I'm a king, I'm the dirt, God within me shine,' the first half of '6 Weeks' delves into my attempts to balance the notion that I have an existential purpose with the realization that I am nothing against the vastness of the universe.

If you call 'religious' a man who believes in what I call a Supermeaning, a meaning so comprehensive that you can no longer grasp it, get hold of it in rational intellectual terminology, then one should feel free to call me religious, really.

I believe that I am in hell, therefore I am there.

I grew up in a small industrial suburb of Haifa in Israel. As far back as I remember, I was interested in big questions. Who are we? What are we doing here? But the chances to discuss philosophy were quite thin on the ground.

It was reading Hamlet that ruined the concept of authenticity for me, not because Hamlet lacked existentialist credentials himself - indeed, as an earlier discontented Dane, he could be said to have laid the ground for Kierkegaard - but because the line 'to thine own self be true' was spoken by that humourless old ninny, Polonius.

I don't think things happen for a reason, but I think it's perfectly possible to experience life meaningfully.

we're living longer, getting taller, and are a push of a finger away from every other person on the planet and yet we do not know how to run ourselves. Maybe we're not supposed to know and when we're finished filling the world with parking lots, muffin shops and Starbucks, our point on Earth is finished and with one big cataclysmic boom we'll be gone.

Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.

The doors of heaven and hell are adjacent and identical. —NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS

From any rational point of view I am absurd; but there are no longer any rational points of view.

I'm such a mess," he says. "Sometimes I think everyone's dead.

Alone among the animals, we suffer from the future perfect tense.