Best 642 quotes in «existentialism quotes» category

Every year I managed to live on this earth I collect more questions than answers.

Existence is tedious, anyway.

Existence – what’s it good for, if it can’t be forever – and the only way to exist forever is through your actions – your civilized, courageous and conscientious actions.

Existential crisis if comes before the expected age yields fruitful results.

Existentialism is commonly associated with Left-Bank Parisian cafes and the ‘family’ of philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir who gathered there in the years immediately following the liberation of Paris at the end of World War II. One imagines offbeat, avant-garde intellectuals, attached to their cigarettes, listening to jazz as they hotly debate the implications of their new-found political and artistic liberty. The mood is one of enthusiasm, creativity, anguished self-analysis, and freedom – always freedom. Though this reflects the image projected by the media of the day and doubtless captures the spirit of the time, it glosses over the philosophical significance of existentialist thought, packaging it as a cultural phenomenon of a certain historical period. That is perhaps the price paid by a manner of thinking so bent on doing philosophy concretely rather than in some abstract and timeless manner. The existentialists’ urge for contemporary relevance fired their social and political commitment. But it also linked them with the problems of their day and invited subsequent generations to view them as having the currency of yesterday’s news. Such is the misreading of existentialist thought that I hope to correct in this short volume. If it bears the marks of its post-war appearance, existentialism as a manner of doing philosophy and a way of addressing the issues that matter in people’s lives is at least as old as philosophy itself. It is as current as the human condition which it examines.

Existentialism, in both its Continental and its Anglo-Saxon versions, is an attempt to solve the problem without really facing it: to solve it by attributing to the individual an empty, lonely freedom, a freedom, if he wishes, to 'fly in the face of the facts'. What it pictures is indeed the fearful solitude of the individual marooned upon a tiny island in the middle of a sea of scientific facts, and morality escaping from science only by a wild leap of the will. But our situation is not like this.

Existentialism's first move is to make every man aware of what he is and to make the full responsibility of his existence rest on him.

existing is value-making

For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration.

For innocence lost The same is the cost The ride of your life But you can never get off

...freedom only gives you something to be sorry for.

Existence is where the soul goes to learn how to interpret itself again.

Existentialism is no mournful delectation but a humanist philosophy of action, effort, combat, and solidarity. Man must create his own essence: it is in throwing himself into the world, suffering there, struggling there, that he gradually defines say what this man is before he dies, or what mankind is before it has disappeared.

Existentialism” is a thinking That no longer wishes to think; this means the destruction Of the true thinking that constitutes man. The existentialist fanatics Dislocate their brains for nothing — it is only a case of Self-delusion and self-promotion. For to think truly means: recollection. Let the fools spin their foolishness. ----- “Daseinsphilosophie” — sie ist ein Denken Des Nichtmehr-Denkenwollens: so Zerstörung Des wahren Denkens, das den Menschen macht. Die Existenz-Fanatiker verrenken Sich das Gehirn für nichts — nur Selbstbetörung Und Selbstbespiegelung kommt in Betracht. Denn wirklich denken heißet: sich besinnen. Und lasst die Narren ihre Torheit spinnen.

Facing up to non-being enables us to put our life into perspective, see it in its entirety, and thereby lend it a sense of direction and unity. If the ultimate source of anxiety is fear of the future, the future ends in death; and if the ultimate source of anxiety is uncertainty, death is the only certainty. It is only by facing up to death, accepting its inevitability, and integrating it into life that we can escape from the pettiness and paralysis of anxiety, and, in so doing, free ourselves to make the most out of our lives and out of ourselves.

Fate is the cruelest of masters, taking Life when it pleases or at random, handing Rigged decks to whom it pleases, cheating All alike and none the wiser, taking Everything away from those with nothing.

Feet on the ground, eyes to the stars, heart in union with the Superior.

Fighting for freedom” is a myth. There’s only freedom in uniting. You’re not really free with an, “Us vs Them” mentality; because you are constantly defending yourself. And in fighting, there’s no time for freedom.

For instance, there is something new about my hands, a certain way of picking up my pipe or fork. Or else it's the fork which now has a certain way of having itself picked up, I don't know. A little while ago, just as I was coming into my room, I stopped short because I felt in my hand a cold object which held my attention through a sort of personality. I opened my hand, looked: I was simply holding the door-knob.

Freundshaft, or Friendship has a valuable character only if one can be a friend oneself to others without seeking any friendship in return. On the other hand, one should be mindful, and not value and be distracted by those who suffer dishonorable habits and whose style of life we should not seek after.

From now on it is not dying we must fear, but living.

Given enough time everything becomes insignificant.

God desires that man should be. God does not wish to be alone. The meaning of existence is the conquest of loneliness, the acquisition of kinship and nearness.

God has not yet revealed himself to no one in no unclear terms. Religions are attempts to find him; on that level they are all equal

God, it’s so stupid the way I see my life, see all my existence as if there’s some magic out there waiting just for me.

God! when you think of all the things you could do and yet somehow never do! All the opportunities you let slip by! The idea, the inspiration just doesn't come fast enough. Instead of being open, you're closed up tight. Thats's the worst sin of all - the sin of omission.

Good is god and discrimination is demon.

HAMM: Yesterday! What does that mean? Yesterday! CLOV (violently): That means that bloody awful day, long ago, before this bloody awful day. I use the words you taught me. If they don't mean anything any more, teach me others. Or let me be silent. (Pause.)

HAMM: Scoundrel! Why did you engender me? NAGG: I didn't know. HAMM: What? What didn't you know? NAGG: That it'd be you. (Pause.)

Happiness consists in a being harmonious with itself. In a subject’s relation to itself that is affirmative, and not without clandestine operations and routines (i.e., the neurotic mind that affirms an image not its own to avoid confrontation). Despair, consists in a Kierkegaardian sickness, a self which does not want to be itself, that is, it consists in a subject’s relation to itself which is negative, which does not affirm that which it is. The problem of happiness is a very simple one: one must simply change ones attitudes towards oneself, one must simply affirm who one is.

hati terikat, jiwa bebas.--jika kau mengikat dan merantai hatimu kuatkuat, kau dapat memberikan banyak kebebasan pada jiwamu: itulah yang ku katakan pada suatu hari. akan tetapi orangorang tidak percaya, kecuali saat mereka benarbenar menemukannya

He realized that time, clocks ticking, everything is just a human-made concept. That clocks didn’t tick back in the times he was seeing now, and he realized that the sun never sets as long as you travel with it, circumnavigating the globe, once every 24 hours. It was a new thought, a new dogma to Jordan, evolving his idea of being more than one at once. It was an idea of being more than one time at once, literally moving along the 4th dimension. Not being pushed to the side, not being pushed up or down, not being pushed inward or outward, but being pushed in one way, without ever moving at all. They were being pushed along the track of time, with no way to go back, with no way to retract and go back to the starting point as they could in any of the three visible dimensions. And it was that thought, Jordan finally realized, that made him exhausted and scared. It was that realization that made Jordan realize that this was the thing Tong was afraid of. That through all his travels on planes and all his moving around the world, he could still go back to Bangkok, he could still go back to the hospital where he was born, but he could never go backward on that track and stand in the same place, only the same location, as where his first day began." -A Spontaneous Existence, Chandler Ivanko

Her nausea increased, the dialect had become unfamiliar, the way our wet throats bathed the words in the liquid of saliva was intolerable. A sense of repulsion had invested all the bodies in movement, their bone structure, the frenzy that shook them. How poorly made we are, she thought, how insufficient. The broad shoulders, the arms, the legs, the ears, noses, eyes, seemed to her attributes of monstrous beings who had fallen from some corner of the black sky.

He’s a typical existentialist. And that’s a contradiction in terms if ever there was one.

He stayed under the fluorescent street light until the sounds of traffic and nightlife faded into silence, and only then did he look up into the night sky, the way he usually did when he was looking for answers.

Games are never over because you think them so! Which is why I like you. Are you doing what you want to do...or are you simply another piece of a darkened puzzle? Your own actions predetermined by powers higher than yourself?

Gövde, bir kere yaşamaya başlayınca, bu işe kendi kendine devam eder. Ama düşünce öyle değil. Düşünceyi ben sürdürür, ben geliştiririm. Varoluşmaktayım. Varoluşmakta olduğumu düşünüyorum. Şu varoluşma duygusu ne kıvıl kıvıl bir şey! Onu ben sürdürüyorum yavaşça. Düşünmemi durdurabilseydim... Çabalıyorum buna, başarıyorum. Kafamın içi dumanla doluyor gibi... ama işte yeniden başladı. "Duman... düşünmemek... Düşünmemek istemiyorum. Düşünmek istemediğimi düşünüyorum. Düşünmek istemediğimi düşünmemem gerek." Bitmek bilmeyecek mi bu?

Gran is alone, too. I don’t know why I never thought of it before. I think of the last five years, and Gran and Bob living in the same house all that time. I can’t decide if it’s nice or just really sad. “Why don’t you move to America? You could live at our house! I’m sure Mom and Dad wouldn’t mind.” Gran nods. “They’ve offered. Problem is, I love it here.” She raises her arms and kind of waves at the trees. “I love the place and I love the people.” So maybe it’s not sad that Gran lives alone. Maybe it’s a choice.

Hacerse dios es solamente ser libre en esta tierra, no servir a un ser inmortal. Es, sobre todo, por supuesto, sacar todas las consecuencia de esa independencia dolorosa. Si Dios existe, todo depende de él y nosotros nada podemos contra su voluntad. Si no existe, todo depende de nosotros. Para Kirilov, lo mismo que para Nietzsche, matar a Dios es hacerse dios uno mismo, es realizar en esta tierra la vida eterna de que habla el Evangelio.

Happiness is a frightening state of being. If we let ourselves be happy, then there is something that can always be taken from us. In one minute, one second, everything can change.

Hard as it may sound, no god has saved anything or anyone in human history. It is the humans who have done so.

Have you ever heard of the madman who on a bright morning lighted a lantern and ran to the market-place calling out unceasingly: "I seek God! I seek God!"—As there were many people standing about who did not believe in God, he caused a great deal of amusement. Why! is he lost? said one. Has he strayed away like a child? said another. Or does he keep himself hidden? Is he afraid of us? Has he taken a sea-voyage? Has he emigrated?—the people cried out laughingly, all in a hubbub. The insane man jumped into their midst and transfixed them with his glances. "Where is God gone?" he called out. "I mean to tell you! We have killed him,—you and I! We are all his murderers! But how have we done it? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened this earth from its sun? Whither does it now move? Whither do we move? Away from all suns? Do we not dash on unceasingly? Back-wards, sideways, forewards, in all directions? Is there still an above and below? Do we not stray, as through infinite nothingness? Does not empty space breathe upon us? Has it not become colder? Does not night come on continually, darker and darker? Shall we not have to light lanterns in the morning? Do we not hear the noise of the grave-diggers who are burying God? Do we not smell the divine putrefaction?—for even Gods putrefy! God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife,—who will wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves? What lustrums, what sacred games shall we have to devise? Is not the magnitude of this deed too great for us? Shall we not ourselves have to become Gods, merely to seem worthy of it? There never was a greater event,—and on account of it, all who are born after us belong to a higher history than any history hitherto!"—Here the madman was silent and looked again at his hearers; they also were silent and looked at him in surprise. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, so that it broke in pieces and was extinguished. "I come too early," he then said, "I am not yet at the right time. This prodigious event is still on its way, and is travelling,—it has not yet reached men's ears. Lightning and thunder need time, the light of the stars needs time, deeds need time, even after they are done, to be seen and heard. This deed is as yet further from them than the furthest star,—and yet they have done it!"—It is further stated that the madman made his way into different churches on the same day, and there intoned his Requiem æternam deo. When led out and called to account, he always gave the reply: "What are these churches now, if they are not the tombs and monuments of God?

He had not the benefit of existentialist terminology; but what he felt was a very clear case of the anxiety of freedom - that is, the realization that one is free and the realization that being free is a situation of terror

Heidegger considers the human condition coldly and announces that existence is humiliated. The only reality is "anxiety" in the whole chain of being. To the man lost in the world and its diversions this anxiety is a brief, fleeting fear. But if that fear becomes conscious of itself, it becomes anguish, the perpetual climate of the lucid man "in whom existence is concentrated." This professor of philosophy writes without trembling and in the most abstract language in the world that "the finite and limited character of human existence is more primordial than man himself." His interest in Kant extends only to recognizing the restricted character of his "pure Reason." This is to conclude at the end of his analyses that "the world can no longer offer anything to the man filled with anguish." This anxiety seems to him so much more important than all the categories in the world that he thinks and talks only of it. He enumerates its aspects: boredom when the ordinary man strives to quash it in him and benumb it; terror when the mind contemplates death. He too does not separate consciousness from the absurd. The consciousness of death is the call of anxiety and "existence then delivers itself its own summons through the intermediary of consciousness." It is the very voice of anguish and it adjures existence "to return from its loss in the anonymous They." For him, too, one must not sleep, but must keep alert until the consummation. He stands in this absurd world and points out its ephemeral character. He seeks his way amid these ruins.

Her thoughts were like the moon eclipsing the sun.

He shuffles atoms and jet of light, remotest nebulae, drips of water, prick-points of sensation, slime-oozings and cosmic bulks, all mixed with pearls of faith, love of woman, imagined dignities, frightened surmises, and pompous arrogances, and of the stuff builds himself an immortality to startle the heavens and baffle the immensities. He squirms on his dunghill, and like a child lost in the dark among goblins, calls to the gods that he is their younger brother, a prisoner of the quick that is destined to be as free as they - monuments of egotism reared by the epiphenomena; dreams and the dust of dreams, that vanish when the dreamer vanishes and are no more when he is not.

He thought, that all men, trickled away, changing constantly, until they finally dissolved, while the artist-created images remained unchangeably the same. He thought that the fear of death was perhaps the root of all art, perhaps also of all things of the mind. We fear death, we shudder at life’s instability, we grieve to see the flowers wilt again and again, and the leaves fall, and in our hearts we know that we, too, are transitory and will search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something that lasts longer than we do. Perhaps the woman after whom the master shaped his beautiful Madonna is already wilted or dead, and soon he, too, will be dead; others will live in his house and eat at his table- but his work will still be standing hundreds of years from now, and longer. It will go on shimmering in the quiet cloister church, unchangingly beautiful, forever smiling with the same sad, flowering mouth.

He wrote arguments for and against life; he began to think the slowest and most painful form of suicide was living, running the whole decathlon of suffering, no breather or bottled water. Fear of dying was irrational. Death was utilitarian. Decrease in net resource consumption and planetary suffering. Increase in net comedy. There was no afterlife but there was a right-before-death, and medical research said it was loopy and nice, all white lights and gentle voices. With booze it wasn't even scary. Some people with terrible lives didn't kill themselves, but that didn't mean they shouldn't. Most people weren't alive and didn't mind. You couldn't regret it.

Hiding my half existence behind the opaque walls of my skull, concealing it like a shameful disease, I did not consider the simple fact that the same thing could be occurring under other skullcaps, in other locked rooms.

His primacy of self and willingness to perpetuate his will go beyond death and toward perfection.