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Existential Crisis Quotes

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Existential Crisis Quotes

“He thought about the loss of humanity that was eating away at the world and the loss of the connection to the self that ate away at the consciousness which animated all into being. He thought about how the collective psyche was teetering on that knife’s edge between a desperation to live and a desperation to die. And here he was at the cusp of it himself.”

ConsciousnessExistentialismExistentialExistential CrisisExistential AngstStruggle QuotesExistential PhilosophyStruggle Of ExistenceDesperation QuotesBeing Quotes
Book:The Subtle Cause
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“The powerful questions of life produce a dynamic dualism, which interplay creates the operatic structure that we must operate. Can the flesh and spirit coexist? Can inner despair and renewed optimism reside under the same roof? Can we harness humankind’s wretchedness in order to broker its salvation? Should all people seek out perfection or work to accept their fallibility? Should I eschew pain or embrace suffering? Do I cave into the meaningless of my life or actively rebel against the patent absurdity of human existence?”

Meaning Of LifeExistentialismPurpose Of LifeExistentialExistential CrisisExistential AngstSelf QuestioningLife QuestionsExistential AnguishQuestions Of Life
Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
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“No importa tanto la diferenciación entre el progreso representado por el ahorro de energía (que simplifica la vida cotidiana) o por la expansión de energía (que potencia nuestras aspiraciones o "aficiones" naturales), sino el acento puesto en la excesiva velocidad con que estas transformaciones han afectado al Japón, como consecuencia de la procedencia externa de los estímulos que, al no ser fruto de una secuencia generado intrínsecamente, ha obligado a una apresurada (y por ello superficial) asimilación de los cambios (muchos en muy poco tiempo), lo cual ha llegado a provocar una auténtica "angustia existencial.”

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Book:My Individualism & The Philosophical Foundations of Literature
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“There was only that bobbing bundle of stringy, dirty-blonde hair fading into a sea of other heads bobbing and faces coming and going, of storylines intersecting and entwining and then fraying only to become irretrievably lost in the interminable wave-pattern of curiosities fleeting and nothingness everlasting.”

ExistentialismExistentialNothingnessExistential CrisisExistential PhilosophyWave QuoteNothingness Of BeingExistential QuestionsExistentialism Meaning In LifeNothingness Quotes
Book:The Subtle Cause
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“I sat down and looked at the menu and thought how ironic it was that back then starving artists came to cafes like these because they lived on wine and street pigeons to survive, and now the same cafes are famous because of them and no starving artist can afford to eat there. It's hard to have an existential crisis when a glass of wine costs more than nine dollars.”

Existential CrisisStarving Artists
Book:Hungry Woman in Paris
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“I’m history’s last fucking joke—burned out in a senior center doing Namaste Yoga while God shows up in a saltine cracker, calls me a coward, and offers me a cigarette. That’s it. That’s the punchline. So fuck your hope, and fuck your healing. I’m already holy. I’m already gone.”

Mental IllnessDark HumorExistential CrisisTrauma RecoveryGallows HumorPoetic DespairReligious SatireApocalyptic ComedyDivine AbsurditySpiritual Disillusionment
Book:Glad You're Not Me
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“A desire to attain short-term happiness while laboring under the weight a looming death sentence is an obvious paradox. Suicide, as distinguished from medical euthanasia, is an emotional reaction to the absurdity of life. Suicide is a panic-stricken reflex induced by the sinister twins of fear and foreboding. A rational person does not commit self-murder because their longing for happiness is incongruent with their present day reality. Suicide is a superficial response to hard times; suicide is a pusillanimous solution. A more measured reaction and, therefore, ultimately a braver and logical tactic is to meet life’s pillbox of irrationality headfirst. Upon soul-searching reflection, a thinking person accepts that while he or she might never comprehend a unifying meaning of life they still prefer to experience each permitted day of life to the fullest. A pragmatic person accepts the cold fact that happiness is fleeting and death is inevitable. By acknowledging and accepting the underlying absurdity of life, the prisoner awakens to discover his own humanity. By refusing to cooperate with death, by working each day to expand personal consciousness, by savoring each moment of life regardless of its hazards, adversities, misfortunes, and seemingly lack of overriding purpose, an impertinent ward of time transcends his or her incarnate incarceration.”

SuicideExistentialismAbsurdityNihilismExistential CrisisExistential AngstNihilisticExistential Anguish
Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
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“I cannot shun the past because it contains information that is useful to script future goals. Looking back into the opaque window of reductive retrospect, what essential opportunities exist today that beckon one to seek with unrestrained enthusiasm? What iridescent signals flare from our conceptual self that if we heedlessly ignore their luminous summons, such deliberate acts of omission will suture the apex of our souls, relegating us to the dreaded curse of mucking along in an ordinary life stalled out by our overweening fear of estrangement?”

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Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
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“Am I alone in an ensconced inner world where I obsessively worry about what happens to me, where the story of personal survival becomes the central theme of my shallow existence? I think not. Swaddled in our own brand of strangeness, we all struggle to come to terms with our demonstrated personal shortcomings. Our yearned-for life of living in pink skyways far removed from harm’s way is depressingly marked in contrast by our actual crabby existence spent scuttling along akin to a smug lobster, scrunched down on the asphalt streets, working in the city grid as frumpy members of the faceless mob.”

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Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
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“A person whom questions the purpose behind enduring life strafed with pain and self-doubt must construct a self-rescue plan. Does a demoralized person discover contentment and a meaningful life through expanded intellectual studies or by becoming engrossed in living deeply connected to nature? Should I seek personal conquest and eradication of ugly segments of my persona or merger and unification of the irrational splinters of a fragmented and traumatized personality? How does a person express what it means to be human? How does a person locate the incandescent flash of their flesh? If I shout into the wind with all my might, will responsive people hear my wild cry? Will placing pen to paper buffet the cantos of a troubled mind, expose the operatic musings of a madman’s ranting song, or will looking at each day through the diverse lens of both detachment and solipsism ignite an illuminating shaft of wisdom to grace the sinkhole of a fallen man?”

Meaningful LifeSelf DoubtExistential CrisisExistential AngstMeaningful LivingLife QuestionsMadmanExistential AnguishExistential Questions
Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
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“I do the splits perfectly in PE. I lose half a pound in two days. I get the spinach and pig-meat frittata from the lo-carb section for lunch. And no-one else knows. I mentally construct a MyFace status, polishing the memories carefully until they shine. The need to record my life is as fundamental as my need to breathe. Without MyFace, I'm floating. I have nothing to anchor me down, to prove I exist.”

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Author:Louise O'Neill
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“I always had an existential crisis, trying to figure out ‘what does it all mean?’ I came to the conclusion that if we can advance the knowledge of the world, if we can expand the scope and scale of consciousness, then, we’re better able to ask the right questions and become more enlightened. That’s the only way to move forward.”

IfsWorldWayTryingMeanDoeAbleMovingAsksConsciousnessFiguresCrisisScalesMoving ForwardConclusionEnlightenedExistentialScopeRight QuestionsExistential CrisisKnowledge Of The World
Author:Elon Musk
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“I went to school, and I remember that you had to do these tests to find out what set you're in - how clever you are. I put down "Kit Harington," and they looked at me like I was completely stupid, and they said, "No, you're Christopher Harington, I'm afraid." It was only then I learnt my actual name. That was kind of a bizarre existential crisis for an 11-year-old to have, but in the end I always stuck with Kit, because I felt that's who I was. I'm not really a "Chris."”

YearsKindSaidEndsSchoolRememberNamesFeltStupidTestsCrisisStuckCleverExistentialThey SaidBizarreExistential Crisis
Author:Kit Harington
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“Sci-Fi is the genre that explored both possibilities: the end of our existential crisis and the end of our existence. My novel, The 5th Wave, explores the latter scenario, because, frankly, I believe it represents the likeliest outcome of an extraterrestrial encounter. In short, if they're out there, we better hope they never find us.”

IfsBelieveEndsI BelieveExistenceNovelPossibilityCrisisWaveGenreOutcomesEncountersLatterSci FiExistentialScenariosExistential CrisisExtraterrestrial5th Wave
Author:Rick Yancey
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“[Having] appropriated to itself all conscious intelligence in the universe ...Man faces the existential crisis of being a solitary and mortal conscious ego thrown into an ultimately meaningless and unknowable universe ...and the psychological and biological crisis of living in a world that has come to be shaped in such a way that it precisely matches his world view-i.e., in a man-made environment that is increasingly mechanistic, atomized, soulless, and self-destructive.”

MenWorldWayMadeSelfFacesUniverseViewsEnvironmentEgoConsciousCrisisPsychologicalMortalsDestructiveThrownMeaninglessSolitaryExistentialWorld ViewSelf DestructiveExistential CrisisSoulless
Author:Richard Tarnas
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“I think that obviously the quest for purpose, or meaning, or understanding to existence is something that I always think about, always deal with. I guess everybody does - that existential crisis of human condition. It's nothing new. But I'd love to come across something that really made me believe in something.”

ThinkingBelieveHumansDoeMadePurposeUnderstandingDealsExistenceConditionsCrisisHuman ConditionQuestsExistentialNothing NewExistential Crisis
Author:Conor Oberst
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