Quotes About Nihilism

I praise, I do not reproach, [nihilism's] arrival. I believe it is one of the greatest crises, a moment of the deepest self-reflection of humanity. Whether man recovers from it, whether he becomes master of this crisis, is a question of his strength

What does nihilism mean? That the highest values devaluate themselves. The aim is lacking; 'why?' finds no answer.

What does Nihilism mean?—That the highest values are losing their value.

S-ar putea s? existe chiar fanatici puritani ai conÅŸtiinÅ£ei care s? doreasc? a muri culcaÅ£i mai degrab? pe un Nimic cert decât pe un Ceva nesigur. Dar acesta e nihilism, însemnul unui suflet dezn?d?jduit ÅŸi dezgustat de moarte, oricât de curajoase ar p?rea atitudinile unei astfel de virtuÅ£i.

A nihilist is a man who judges that the real world ought not to be, and that the world as it ought to be does not exist. According to this view, our existence (action, suffering, willing, feeling) has no meaning: this 'in vain' is the nihilists' pathos—an inconsistency on the part of the nihilists.

Why should one live? All is vain! To live- that is to thresh straw; to live- that is to burn oneself and yet not get warm.-

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

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

The faith in the categories of reason is the cause of nihilism. We have measured the value of the world according to categories that refer to a purely fictitious world.

A nihilist is a man who judges of the world as it is that it ought not to be, and of the world as it ought to be that it does not exist. According to this view, our existence (action, suffering, willing, feeling) has no meaning: the pathos of 'in vain' is the nihilists' pathos – at the same time, as pathos, an inconsistency on the part of the nihilists.

Nothing lives which would be worthy of your striving, and the earth deserves not a sigh. Pain and boredom is our being and the world is excrement, ??nothing else. Calm yourself.

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.

Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

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....

Don't get overly optimistic about death," I said. "I'm warning you. My views are changing. The atheism and nihilism of my earlier years now seems shallow, and even a bit cocky.

Everything seemed meaningless to me. All of a sudden. My own life, the lives of others, of animals of plants, the whole world. It no longer fitted together.

There are preachers of death: and the earth is full of those to whom desistance from life must be preached.

Punks are nihilists who see no tomorrow at all, and dwell in a culture of death music and death imagery. Appropriately, Return focuses on a group of punks who bear names like Trash, Suicide, and Scum, their very names indicating their lack of respect for the world, and themselves. They see themselves as nothing in a world that doesn't value them, and won't survive an apocalypse.

Mailer's Negro lived in a realm of Nietzschean nihilism, of Being-for-Itself.

The Nietzschean nihilist could "implant into that which is degenerate and desires to die a longing for the end"—in other words, by planting the idea of decline in society one could actually hasten its demise.11

The painter once believed in something, but now he paints only a hole without meaning, without anything- nothing but nothingness, the nothingness of our time.

Futilitarianism.

Sigmund Freud

If I were to share Jaques' existence I would find it hard to hold my own against him, for already I found his nihilism contagious.