Book detail: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism is presented as a focused source page for quotations connected with this book, collection, transcript, or source record.
The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection is a curated selection of essays that examine the fundamental aspects of existentialist thought. It encompasses discussions on metaphysical inquiries and the complexities of ethical ambiguity. The collection includes works that have significantly contributed to the understanding and development of existentialist philosophy.
The quotes below use the same card format as the rest of the site, including topics, source notes, copy actions, image creation, and sharing controls.
Read more
“What is not possible is not to choose.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“In wanting freedom we discover that it depends entirely on the freedom of others, and that the freedom of others depends on ours. . . I am obliged to want others to have freedom at the same time that I want my own freedom. I can take freedom as my goal only if I take that of others as a goal as well.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“In the face of an obstacle which is impossible to overcome, stubbornness is stupid.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“An individual chooses and makes himself.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“A man is involved in life, leaves his impress on it, and outside of that there is nothing.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“Consciousness is a being the nature of which is to be conscious of the nothingness of its being.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“Today, however, we are having a hard time living because we are so bent on outwitting death.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“As long as there have been men and they have lived, they have all felt this tragic ambiguity of their condition, but as long as there have been philosophers and they have thought, most of them have tried to mask it.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“There is no human nature, since there is no god to conceive it.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“What is meant here by saying that existence precedes essence? It means first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself. If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing. Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“For the artist, the color, the bouquet, the tinkling of the spoon on the saucer, are things in the highest degree. He stops at the quality of the sound or the form. He returns to it constantly and is enchanted with it.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“To will oneself moral and to will oneself free are one and the same decision.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“We must not confuse the present with the past. With regard to the past, no further action is possible.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“To be free is not to have the power to do anything you like; it is to be able to surpass the given toward an open future.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“Our responsibility is much greater than we might have supposed, because it involves all mankind.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“No existence can be validly fulfilled if it is limited to itself.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“The individual is defined only by his relationship to the world and to other individuals; he exists only by transcending himself, and his freedom can be achieved only through the freedom of others. He justifies his existence by a movement which, like freedom, springs from his heart but which leads outside of himself.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“The notion of ambiguity must not be confused with that of absurdity. To declare that existence is absurd is to deny that it can ever be given a meaning; to say that it is ambiguous is to assert that its meaning is never fixed, that it must be constantly won. Absurdity challenges every ethics; but also the finished rationalization of the real would leave no room for ethics; it is because man's condition is ambiguous that he seeks, through failure and outrageousness, to save his existence.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“Every war, every revolution, demands the sacrifice of a generation, of a collectivity, by those who undertake it.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“Indeed, there is nothing more arbitrary than intervening as a stranger in a destiny which is not ours.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“There are cases where the slave does not know his servitude and where it is necessary to bring the seed of his liberation to him from the outside: his submission is not enough to justify the tyranny which is imposed upon him.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“Man exists, turns up, appears on the scene and only afterwards, defines himself”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“From the very beginning, existentialism defined itself as a philosophy of ambiguity.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“Existentialism does not offer to the reader the consolations of an abstract evasion: existentialism proposes no evasion. On the contrary, its ethics is experienced in the truth of life, and it then appears as the only proposition of salvation which one can address to men.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
“To choose this or that is to affirm at the same time the value of what we choose, because we can never choose evil. We always choose the good, and nothing can be good for us without being
good for all.”
Source: The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism