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Nihilism Quotes

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Nihilism Quotes

“His hatred for all was so intense that it should extinguish the very love from which it was conceived. And thus, he ceased to feel. There was nothing further in which to believe that made the prospect of feeling worthwhile. Daily he woke up and cast downtrodden eyes upon the sea and he would say to himself with a hint of regret at his hitherto lack of indifference, 'All a dim illusion, was it? Surely it was foolish of me to think any of this had meaning.' He would then spend hours staring at the sky, wondering how best to pass the time if everything—even the sky itself— were for naught. He arrived at the conclusion that there was no best way to pass the time. The only way to deal with the illusion of time was to endure it, knowing full well, all the while, that one was truly enduring nothing at all. Unfortunately for him, this nihilistic resolution to dispassion didn’t suit him very well and he soon became extremely bored. Faced now with the choice between further boredom and further suffering, he impatiently chose the latter, sailing another few weeks along the coast , and then inland, before finally dropping anchor off the shores of the fishing village of Yami.”

LoveSufferingHatredDisappointmentIndifferenceBoredomBitternessNihilismLove And HatePassage Of TimeEnnuiBlack HumorIrony Of LifeGallows HumorAbsurdist FictionAshim ShankerInfinitudeDispassionNaughtProlonging LifeCosmic IronyOnly The Deplorable
Book:Only the Deplorable
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“Continental thinkers have been obsessed with bourgeois man as representing the worst and most contemptible failure of modernity, which must at all costs be overcome. Nihilism in its most palpable sense means that the bourgeois has won, that the future, all foreseeable futures, belong to him, that all heights above him and all depths beneath him are illusory and that life is not worth living on these terms.”

MenMeanHas BeensLife IsTermWorstCostOvercomingDepthHeightObsessedThinkerWorth LivingModernityNihilismLiving OnBourgeoisRepresentingIllusoryContinentalLife Is Not Worth Living
Author:Allan Bloom
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“Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.”

KnowsMenHumansProblemLife IsDiesFightingEvilJusticePerfectHalfWillingSolutionsAbsolutesFinalsAffairToleranceCompromiseManifestationRejectionEtcGood LifeImperfectionInherentEquityNihilismNot PerfectFree ManLoatheInsistenceApproximationHuman ProblemsLesser EvilJustice EqualityHalf Measures
Author:Eric Hoffer
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“The Nazis, for him, are merely available movie tropes--articulate monsters with a talent for sadism. By making the Americans cruel, too, he escapes the customary division of good and evil along national lines, but he escapes any sense of moral accountability as well. In a Tarantino war, everyone commits atrocities. Like all the director's work after 'Jackie Brown,' the movie is pure sensation. It's disconnected from feeling, and an eerie blankness--it's too shallow to be called nihilism--undermines even the best scenes.”

WellsWarFeelingsEvilLinesMoralTalentScenePureDirectorsAvailableMonstersCommitBrownGood And EvilAccountabilityDivisionSensationsNaziShallowNihilismAtrocitiesDisconnectedJackieSadismTarantinoEerieTropesBlanknessJackie Brown
Book:Do the Movies Have a Future?
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“When I was in college, I remember fearing that the dreary grind of adulthood would feature infinitely more existential dread than frat parties had, but the opposite has been true for me. I'm much less likely to feel that gnawing fear of aimlessness and nihilism than I used to be and that's partly because education gave me job opportunities, but it's mostly because education gave me perspective and context.”

FeelsHas BeensJobsRememberUsedOpportunityPartyEducationCollegePerspectiveOppositesUsed To BeFeaturesDreadAdulthoodExistentialNihilismGrindDrearyJob OpportunitiesAimlessnessFrat Parties
Author:John Green
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“What every artist should try to prevent is the car, in which is our civilized life, plunging over the side of the precipice -- the exhibitionist extremist promoter driving the whole bag of tricks into a nihilistic nothingness or zero.”

ShouldTryingWholeArtistSidesCarDrivingTricksBagsCivilizedZeroNothingnessNihilismExtremistPrecipicePromotersExhibitionist
Book:The Essential Wyndham Lewis: An Introduction to His Work
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“Philosophy would do well to desist from issuing any further injunctions about the need to re-establish the meaningfulness of existence, the purposefulness of life, or mend the shattered concord between man and nature. It should strive to be more than a sop to the pathetic twinge of human self-esteem. Nihilism is not an existential quandary but a speculative opportunity.”

MenNeedsShouldHumansWellsSelfPhilosophyOpportunityExistenceSelf EsteemStriveEsteemExistentialPatheticNihilismShatteredMan And NatureMeaningfulnessPurposefulness
Author:Ray Brassier
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“... the twin concepts of nihilism and the antihero have had it. What began with The Wild One and James "nobody understands me" Dean, ran with increasing vehement negativism up through the Stones and Velvets and Iggy ... [I]t may be time, in spite of all indications to the contrary from the exterior society, to begin thinking in terms of heroes again, of love instead of hate, of energy instead of violence, of strength instead of cruelty, of action instead of reaction.”

ThinkingMayActionHateEnergyTermViolenceHeroConceptsStonesContraryReactionsCrueltyRanSpiteTwinsNihilismIndicationDeanVelvetExteriorUnderstand MeVehementAntiheroesWild OneNobody Understands Me
Author:Lester Bangs
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“Religion itself cannot but be dynamic which is why "return" is an incorrect term. A return to the forms of religion which perhaps existed a couple of centuries ago is absolutely impossible. On the contrary, in order to combat modern materialistic mores, as religion must, to fight nihilism and egotism, religion must also develop, must be flexible in its forms, and it must have a correlation with the cultural forms of the epoch.”

FormOrderFightingModernCombatFlexibleEgotismNihilismMaterialisticEpochCorrelation
Author:Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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“I'm not sure if Cupitt himself still uses this term, but it's useful in suggesting that, actually, there are more choices than the choice between nihilism and faith. In fact, the issue may not be faith as such but the fact that for millennia, Christianity has buttressed itself with a particular kind of metaphysics that has now seemingly reached the end of its life-span. But perhaps Buddhist metaphysics could provide an alternative here - or, at least, offer a direction of travel.”

IfsKindMayStillsEndsFactsUseChoicesTermChristianityIssuesParticularOffersBuddhistAlternativesNot SureMetaphysicsNihilismSuggestingLife Span
Author:George Pattison
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“Perhaps - and this goes for the Kyoto School too - one of these insights is that nothingness and unknowing don't have to be equated with a destructive nihilism but with the experience of unity and participation - whilst resisting the tendency of objectifying metaphysics to claim that we can in some way 'know' that this experienced unity is really the truth of how things are, i.e., reveals being itself.”

KnowsWaySchoolClaimsUnityInsightTendenciesDestructiveNothingnessMetaphysicsParticipationNihilismResistingKyotoUnknowingObjectifying
Author:George Pattison
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“The saying "no self, no problem" probably comes from Zen. In their cultures, where Buddhism is kind of taken for granted, as well as karma, causality, former and future life, and the possibility for becoming enlightened, then it's safe to skirt the danger of nihilism, which would be, I don't exist because Buddha said I have no self, and therefore I have no problem because I don't exist. That would be a bad misunderstanding. But in those cultures, it would not be as easy to have that understanding as it would be here in the west, where we really are nihilistic.”

WellsKindSaidSelfProblemWould BeCultureEasyUnderstandingTakenDangerPossibilityBuddhismBecomingSafeWestKarmaFormerGrantedEnlightenedMisunderstandingNo ProblemNihilismSkirtsSaying NoTaken For GrantedCausalityFuture LifeBecoming Enlightened
Author:Robert Thurman
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