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Negation Quotes

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Negation Quotes

“Going through all these quotations, it may be thought that the critics are justified in charging Zen with advocating a philosophy of pure negation, but nothing is so far from Zen as this criticism would imply. For Zen always aims at grasping the central fact of life, which can never be brought to the dissecting table of the intellect. To grasp this central fact of life, Zen is forced to propose a series of negations. Mere negation, however, is not the spirit of Zen, but as we are so accustomed to the dualistic way of thinking, this intellectual error must be cut at its root. Naturally Zen would proclaim, "Not this, not that, not anything." But we may insist upon asking Zen what it is that is left after all these denials, and the master will perhaps on such an occasion give us a slap in the face, exclaiming, "You fool, what is this?" Some may take this as only an excuse to get away from the dilemma, or as having no more meaning than a practical example of ill-breeding. But when the spirit of Zen is grasped in its purity, it will be seen what a real thing that slap is. For here is no negation, no affirmation, but a plain fact, a pure experience, the very foundation of our being and thought. All the quietness and emptiness one might desire in the midst of most active mentation lies therein. Do not be carried away by anything outward or conventional. Zen must be seized with bare hands, with no gloves on.”

BuddhismZenEmptinessZen BuddhismNegation
Book:An Introduction to Zen Buddhism
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“Zen is forced to resort to negation because of our innate ignorance (avidya), which tenaciously clings to the mind as wet clothes do to the body. 'Ignorance' is all very well as far as it goes, but it must not go out of its proper sphere. 'Ignorance' is another name for logical dualism. White is snow and black is the raven. But these belong to the world and its ignorant way of talking. If we want to get to the very truth of things, we must see them from the point where this world has not yet been created, where the consciousness of this and that has not yet been awakened and where the mind is absorbed in its own identity, that is, in its serenity and emptiness. This is a world of negations but leading to a higher and absolute affirmation--an affirmation in the midst of negations. Snow is not white, the raven is not black, yet each in itself is white or black. This is where our everyday language fails to convey the exact meaning as conceived by Zen.”

MindLanguageBuddhismZenEmptinessZen BuddhismNegationDualism
Book:An Introduction to Zen Buddhism
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“What emerges from these separate strands of (modern) history is an image of man himself that bears a new, stark, more nearly naked, and more questionable aspect. The contraction of man's horizons amounts to a denudation, a stripping down, of this being who has now to confront himself at the center of all his horizons. The labor of modern culture, whenever it has been authentic, has been a labor of denudation. A return to the sources; "to the things themselves," as Husserl puts it; toward a new truthfulness, the casting away of ready-made presuppositions and empty forms - these are some of the slogans under which this phase in history has presented itself. Naturally enough, much of this stripping down must appear as the work of destruction, as revolutionary or even "negative": a being who has become thoroughly questionable to himself must also find questionable his relation to the total past which in a sense he represents.”

TruthHistoryDoubtTraditionExistentialismModernityReductionNegationMeaninglessnessSelf QuestioningNakedness
Book:Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy
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“The ultimate destination of this practice of negation is to see through and release even the attachment to the process of negation itself, allowing the full experience and truth and of what they are to be embraced. Many students reach this crossroad and find themselves unsure of how to proceed. We extend our hand to you, honoring the dedication of your soul, and invite you in to embrace The Way of All. This path encompasses everything, while acknowledging and honoring the inherent freedom that is truly available to you. It allows for action rooted in a soul-based, engaged, and invested self. We are here to encourage you and say that there is meaning, and You are the meaning.”

MeaningWorld ViewNegationParadigm ShiftThe SeedSoul PlayNegation Of NegationNegation Of World
Book:"The Seed" Journal: A Space for Recording Your Soul Experiences and Expansive Journeys
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“Often, when someone gets engrossed in the focused endeavor of deconstructing ideas and beliefs, they may lose a sense of meaning. They may lose sight of the inherent Light that exists at the source and remains present and available, even amidst the practice of “stripping away the false,” to find their true essence. At this time, we recommend that anyone here, attracted to or involved in this practice of negation, stripping away the false, to embark and reclaim your dedication to yourself and pivot into a new way. The old ways of this practice have long been detrimental to many human psyches, and the profound depth of the pathway of negation are not often fully comprehended by those who embark upon it. In its place, we offer the practice of “re-knowing”, which will be demonstrated within various Soul Play experiences to come. This new approach is rooted in a space of self-loving negotiation and offers balance to the system of the practitioner.”

Self LoveMeaning Of LifeNegationParadigm ShiftThe SeedSoul PlayDeconstructions Of BeliefsRe Knowing
Book:"The Seed" Journal: A Space for Recording Your Soul Experiences and Expansive Journeys
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“Wenn wir einsehen, dass das Urteilen nicht über dem Gegensatz von 'ist' und 'ist nicht' stehen kann, ziehen wir also nicht die Schlussfolgerung, dass das Urteilen zwei entgegengesetzte Formen hat, 'ist' und 'ist nicht'. Vielmehr folgern wir, dass es Ablehnung, Verneinung, Nein-Sagen ist. Das Urteilen ist nicht die unendliche Kraft, das Sein zu erfassen, sondern die universale Kraft zu Verneinen, auszulöschen, zu zermalmen. Die Kraft des Urteilens zur Negation ist universal, weil seine Idee von sich selbst als verneinen a priori ist, das heißt rein. Das Urteilen versteht sich selbst als Verneinen, indem es sich selbst in seiner absoluten Abstraktion erfasst. Da dieses Selbstverständnis von nichts Gegebenem abhängt, ist es absolut. Darum ist das Wort, das den Begriff des Gegenstands des Urteils ausdrückt, wie er im Selbstbewusstsein des Urteilens verstanden wird, »Nichts«. Während »nicht« der Spezifizierung dessen, was negiert werden soll, bedarf, gibt »Nichts« die Universalität des Verneinens wieder, als das sich das Urteilen selbst versteht.”

NegationDenkenSelbstbewusstseinNichtsRödlUrteilUrteilen
Author:Sebastian Rödl
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“In all these forms of disavowal, nay-saying and denial, what is at work is not a dialectic of negativity or the 'work of the negative'. It is no longer a question of a thought critical of reality, but of a subversion of reality in its principle, in its very self-evidence. The greater the positivity, the more violent is the - possibly silent - denial. We are all dissidents of reality today, clandestine dissidents most of the time. If thought cannot be exchanged for reality, then the immediate denial of reality becomes the only reality-based thinking. But this denial does not lead to hope, as Adorno would have it: 'Hope, as it emerges from reality by struggling against it to deny it, is the only manifestation of lucidity.' Whether for good or for ill, this is not true. Hope, if we were still to have it, would be hope for intelligence of - for insight into - good. Now, what we have left is intelligence of evil, that is to say, intelligence not of a critical reality, but of a reality that has become unreal by dint of positivity, that has become speculative by dint of simulation. Because it is there to counter a void, the whole enterprise of simulation and information, this aggravation of the real and of knowledge of the real, merely gives rise to an evergreater uncertainty. Its very profusion and relentlessness simply spreads panic. And that uncertainty is irredeemable, as it is made up of all the possible solutions.”

RealityCritical ThinkingNegationAdornoDissidenceIntelligence Of Evil
Book:The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact
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“...there ... remains a huge following [of Ayn Rand's philosophy] of those who ignore the indiscretions, infidelities, and moral inconsistencies of the founder and focus instead on the positive aspects of her philosophy. There is much in it to admire, if you do not have to accept the whole package... Criticism of the founder or followers of a philosophy does not, by itself, constitute a negation of any part of the philosophy... Criticism of part of a philosophy does not gainsay the whole.”

IfsThinkingDoePhilosophyWholeAcceptingMoralFocusHugeAspectCriticismRemainsFollowingAdmireFollowersFoundersInfidelityPackagesInconsistencyNegation
Author:Michael Shermer
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“Relief is a great feeling.It's the emotional and physical reward we receive from our bodies upon alleviation of pain, pressure and struggle. A time to bask in the lack of the negative.And yet, think about it—relief is really the status quo, a negation of the suffering, a nothing in itself. It is the way things were before the pressure and struggle began.So, is it a step back? A regression?Or is it an opportunity to regroup, start over, and move in a different direction?Use your moment of relief well.”

ThinkingWayWellsDifferentMomentsUseFeelingsBodyPainMovingSufferingOpportunityStepsStruggleEmotionalNegativePressureRewardsReliefStatus QuoStarting OverYour MomDifferent DirectionsNegationGreat FeelingsRegressionPain Relief
Author:Vera Nazarian
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“No revolution can ever succeed as a factor of liberation unless the MEANS used to further it be identical in spirit and tendency with the PURPOSES to be achieved. Revolution is the negation of the existing, a violent protest against man's inhumanity to man with all the thousand and one slaveries it involves. It is the destroyer of dominant values upon which a complex system of injustice, oppression, and wrong has been built up by ignorance and brutality. It is the herald of NEW VALUES, ushering in a transformation of the basic relations of man to man, and of man to society.”

MenMeanHas BeensUsedSpiritPurposeValuesIgnoranceRevolutionThousandSucceedBuiltRelationTransformationSlaveryComplexesInjusticeViolentTendenciesFactorsOppressionLiberationProtestDominantIdenticalBrutalityDestroyersInhumanityNegationComplex SystemsInhumanity To Man
Author:Emma Goldman
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“Each pursues his private interest and only his private interest; and thereby serves the private interests of all, the general interest, without willing it or knowing it. The real point is not that each individual's pursuit of his private interest promotes the totality of private interests, the general interest. One could just as well deduce from this abstract phrase that each individual reciprocally blocks the assertion of the others' interests, so that, instead of a general affirmation, this war of all against all produces a general negation.”

WellsWarRealIndividualInterestKnowingProduceWillingPursuitPursueBlockPhrasesAbstractAffirmationAssertionTotalityNegation
Author:Karl Marx
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“I am firmly opposed to the government entering into any business the major purpose of which is competition with our citizens... for the Federal Government deliberately to go out to build up and expand... a power and manufacturing business is to break down the initiative and enterprise of the American people; it is the destruction of equality of opportunity amongst our people, it is the negation of the ideals upon which our civilization has been based.”

PeopleHas BeensGovernmentPurposeOpportunityBreakCitizensCivilizationMajorsIdealsDestructionCompetitionEnterpriseInitiativeFederal GovernmentEnteringBreaking DownManufacturingNegationEquality Of Opportunity
Book:March 4, 1929, to October 1, 1931
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“In the anarchist milieu, communism, individualism, collectivism, mutualism and all the intermediate and eclectic programmes are simply the ways considered best for achieving freedom and solidarity in economic life; the ways believed to correspond more closely with justice and freedom for the distribution of the means of production and the products of labour among men. Bakunin was an anarchist, and he was a collectivist, an outspoken enemy of communism because he saw in it the negation of freedom and, therefore, of human dignity.”

MenWayHumansMeanJusticeEnemySawsEconomicAchieveProductsDignityProductionsCommunismLabourIndividualismSolidarityDistributionAnarchismAnarchistProgrammesCollectivismHuman DignityEclecticNegationOutspokenMilieu
Book:Life and Ideas: The Anarchist Writings of Errico Malatesta
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“The Anarchists are right in everything; in the negation of the existing order, and in the assertion that, without authority, there could not be worse violence than that of authority under existing conditions. They are mistaken only in thinking that Anarchy can be instituted by a revolution. "To establish Anarchy." "Anarchy will be instituted." But it will be instituted only by there being more and more people who do not require protection from governmental power, and by there being more and more people who will be ashamed of applying this power.”

PeopleThinkingOrderViolenceConditionsRevolutionAuthorityProtectionAshamedAnarchyMistakenAnarchistAssertionNegationMental Power
Book:Social Evils and Their Remedy
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“Some popular quotations smell of airless closets. They exhale the stale imagination of the intellectual lower middle class. "Suspension of disbelief" has become one of them. Dressed up as a scintillating double negation, it serves the pedestrian notion of art as illusion.”

ArtImaginationClassMiddleIntellectualIllusionNotionSmellMiddle ClassQuotationsClosetsDisbeliefDressed UpStaleNegationSuspensionPedestriansSuspension Of Disbelief
Book:Parables of Sun Light: Observations on Psychology, the Arts, and the Rest
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“[The sea] is the healer and the reviver, it cleanses the cavities of self-disgust and melancholy, of sloth and negation with the salt solution of life. It cures the lethargies of flesh and spirit with the slap and shake of elemental force. It cradles and comforts. Give it trust and it holds you secure; fight it and it kills.”

GivingSelfSpiritFightingForceSeaComfortOceanSolutionsFleshCuresSecureShakesMelancholySaltDisgustingCradleSlapHealerSlothElementalsNegationLethargy
Author:Marya Mannes
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“Of course, even the general designation 'religious' includes various basic ideas or convictions, for example, the indestructibility of the soul, the eternity of its existence, the existence of a higher being, etc. But all these ideas, regardless of how convincing they may be for the individual, are submitted to the critical examination of this individual and hence to a fluctuating affirmation or negation until emotional divination or knowledge assumes the binding force of apodictic faith.”

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Author:Adolf Hitler
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“Mathematics never reveals man to the degree, never expresses him in the way, that any other field of human endeavour does: the extent of the negation of man's corporeal self that mathematics achieves cannot be compared with anything. Whoever is interested in this subject I refer to my articles. Here I will say only that the world injected its patterns into human language at the very inception of that language; mathematics sleeps in every utterance, and can only be discovered, never invented.”

MenWorldWayHumansDoeSelfLanguageSleepAchieveSubjectsFieldsDegreesMathematicsPatternsArticlesEndeavourUtteranceNegationInceptionHuman Language
Book:His Master's Voice
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“I wrote The Philosophy of Disenchantment, which is, I think, the gloomiest and worst book ever published. Out of sheer laziness, I then produced a history of atheism, The Anatomy of Negation, which has been honored by international dislike. Need I state that of all my children it is the one that I prefer?”

ThinkingNeedsChildrenHas BeensBookStatesPhilosophyAtheismWorstInternationalMy ChildrenDislikeLazinessSheerHonoredAnatomyNegationDisenchantment
Author:Edgar Saltus
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“Evil denotes the lack of good. Not every absence of good is an evil, for absence may be taken either in a purely negative or in aprivative sense. Mere negation does not display the character of evil, otherwise nonexistents would be evil and moreover, a thing would be evil for not possessing the goodness of something else, which would mean that man is bad for not having the strength of a lion or the speed of a wild goat. But what is evil is privation; in this sense blindness means the privation of sight.”

MenMayMeanDoeCharacterWould BeEvilTakenGoodnessNegativeSightMereSpeedAbsenceLionsDisplayBlindnessGoatsPossessingNegation
Book:Philosophical Texts
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“Large department stores, with their luxuriant abundance of canned goods, foods, and clothing, are like the primary landscape and the geometrical locus of affluence. Streets with overcrowded and glittering store windowsthe displays of delicacies, and all the scenes of alimentary and vestimentary festivity, stimulate a magical salivation. Accumulation is more than the sum of its products: the conspicuousness of surplus, the final and magical negation of scarcitymimic a new-found nature of prodigious fecundity.”

FoundStreetsProductsSceneFinalsStoresPrimariesLandscapeAbundanceDepartmentGoodsClothingsDisplayAccumulationDelicacySurplusAffluenceNegationProdigiousDepartment StoresFestivities
Author:Jean Baudrillard
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“To talk about the need for perfection in man is to talk about the need for another species. The essence of man is imperfection. Imperfection and blazing contradictions-between mixed good and evil, altruism and selfishness, cooperativeness and combativeness, optimism and fatalism, affirmation and negation.”

MenNeedsEvilPerfectionOptimismEssenceSpeciesSelfishnessContradictionGood And EvilImperfectionAltruismAffirmationBlazingNegationFatalism
Book:Who Speaks for Man?
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“The possible truths, hazily perceived in the world of abstraction, like those inferred from observation and experiment in the world of matter, are forced upon the profane multitudes, too busy to think for themselves, under the form of Divine revelation and scientific authority. But the same question stands open from the days of Socrates and Pilate down to our own age of wholesale negation: is there such a thing as absolute truth in the hands of any one party or man?”

ThinkingMenWorldMatterHandsAgeSpiritualFormPartyDivineAuthorityAbsolutesBusyExperimentsObservationRevelationsMultitudesAbstractionToo BusyAbsolute TruthProfaneNegationWholesaleDivine Revelation
Author:H. P. Blavatsky
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