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Thanatos Quotes

Browse 32 quotes about Thanatos.

Thanatos Quotes

“Happiness is elusive and protean. And it is sterile when devoid of meaning. But meaning, when it is set in the vast arena of war with its high stakes, it’s adrenaline-driven rushes, it’s bold sweeps and drama, is heartless and self-destructive. The initial selflessness of war mirrors that of love, the chief emotion war destroys. And this is what war often looks and feels like, at it’s inception: love.”

LoveWarMeaningErosThanatos
Book:War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning
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“What drove such people to their sinister occupations? Spite? Certainly, but also the desire for order. Because the desire for order tries to transform the human world into an inorganic reign in which everything goes well, everything functions as a subject of an impersonal will. The desire for order is at the same time a desire for death, because life is a perpetual violation of order. Or, inversely, the desire for order is a virtuous pretext by which man's hatred for man justifies its crimes.”

OrderNovelControlWillTotalitarianismSinisterCzechThanatos
Book:Farewell Waltz
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“. . . The idea that sex is something grave belongs to a certain Judeo-Christian superstition. Georges Bataille sees eroticism as a wound through which beings communicate violently, and [René] Étiemble reproaches him for his ‘inverted Christianity,’ with his fascination for the Eros-Thanatos pair. True eroticism is gentle, airy, innocent. Even Sade looks still far too Catholic. We’ve got to de-dramatize. Think of springtime warmth, when the air becomes a vehicle for pollen and the perfume of vigorous activity: ‘All that wonderful awakening of April and May is the vast expanse of sex that proposes voluptuousness sotto voce.’ Let’s not be afraid to be as naive as flowers: pants off and under the sun. Let’s be as simple as doves: let’s mate without fear. Future purity consists of merging with that ‘endless sex orgy… With movies in between.’ The corpus cavernosum has not left the caves. It’s less than the shadow of a shadow. Now we only talk about the sex of the angels—without flesh nor pregnancies, without history nor intimacy, beyond the female and the male, far from marriage and circumcision (a pure spirit has no foreskin). But even angels still have too much consistency. And besides, we don’t believe in them. Rather, let’s compare our sex to Lichtenberg’s famous knife, ‘without a blade, for which the handle is missing’—a knife that cuts nothing…”

SexNatureFleshIntimacyReproductionErosThanatosJudeo Christian
Book:La Profondeur des sexes: Pour une mystique de la chair
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“He loved the sea for deep-seated reasons: the hardworking artist's need for repose, the desire to take shelter from the demanding diversity of phenomena in the bosom of boundless simplicity, a propensity—proscribed and diametrically opposed to his mission in life and for that very reason seductive—a propensity for the unarticulated, the immoderate, the eternal, for nothingness. To repose in perfection is the desire of all those who strive for excellence, and is not nothingness a form of perfection?”

ArtDeathWorkSeaEternalPerfectionExcellenceSimplicityMissionShelterExistentialNothingnessReposePropensityThanatosOceanicBosomProscribed
Book:Death in Venice
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“And, in answering affirmatively to such questions, would not such despair further entrench us in this barbarism as we collectively foreclose upon the possibility of what seems to us impossible—the transformation from a society founded upon evil to one founded upon love? Perhaps even to suggest such a thing strikes us as maudlin and trite. Yet, a path remains open for it, but not one we may wish to embark upon. It is the hope that I may suffer my apathy before barbarism’s decadence. Decadence concerns a collective stagnation of the will that no longer wills anything other than to will itself, i.e., to express its power for power’s sake in an infinite repetition of the same. In such a situation, I am left with the despair of an a-pathetic ego that concludes: “this is just the way things are” or “it is what it is.” Suffering this apathy then means encountering a crossroads whereby I may either more fully assume the thanatonic and participate in the decadence of barbarism or, perhaps, allow this suffering to convert decadence into a crisis, turning from the crisis of crisis that is decadence and, thereby, also convert my a-pathy back toward a pathos that awakens me to this pernicious logic at work.”

ApathyPhenomenologyThanatosThanatos InstinctGiveness
Book:Evil and Givenness: The Thanatonic Phenomenon
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“And, in answering affirmatively to such questions, would not such despair further entrench us in this barbarism as we collectively foreclose upon the possibility of what seems to us impossible—the transformation from a society founded upon evil to one founded upon love? Perhaps even to suggest such a thing strikes us as maudlin and trite. Yet, a path remains open for it, but not one we may wish to embark upon. It is the hope that I may suffer my apathy before barbarism’s decadence. Decadence concerns a collective stagnation of the will that no longer wills anything other than to will itself, i.e., to express its power for power’s sake in an infinite repetition of the same.25 In such a situation, I am left with the despair of an a-pathetic ego that concludes: “this is just the way things are” or “it is what it is.” Suffering this apathy then means encountering a crossroads whereby I may either more fully assume the thanatonic and participate in the decadence of barbarism or, perhaps, allow this suffering to convert decadence into a crisis, turning from the crisis of crisis that is decadence and, thereby, also convert my a-pathy back toward a pathos that awakens me to this pernicious logic at work.”

ApathyPhenomenologyThanatosThanatos InstinctGiveness
Book:Evil and Givenness: The Thanatonic Phenomenon
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“I think most generations tend to learn the lesson of war the hard way. There is a deep attraction to the empowerment. Freud is right: societies either become locked in a collective embrace of Eros, as individuals do, or a collective embrace of Thanatos, the death instinct. They swing between the two. The notion that societies are naturally prone toward self-preservation is wrong. Self-annihilation can be deeply addictive, intoxicating, enticing. So I take a darker view of human nature, that war is probably always going to be with us. I think history bears me out.”

ThinkingWayHumansTwoWarSelfHardIndividualViewsGenerationsHuman NatureBearsLessonsEmpowermentEmbraceInstinctNotionAttractionCollectivesSwingsLockedPreservationAnnihilationSelf PreservationErosHard WayEnticingThanatos
Author:Chris Hedges
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“Ah, those were the days…The Dark-Hunters hunted us, we slaughtered them. We made our homes in underground catacombs and crypts where the Hunters couldn’t go without getting possessed. It was an interesting time to be Apollite or Daimon. But that was before we discovered civilization and modern conveniences. Before the human world developed enough to where we could exist at night under the pretense of being one of them. Apollites owning businesses and houses. Daimons playing Nintendo. What is this world coming to? (Thanatos)”

WorldHumansMadeEnoughHomeNightHouseDarkInterestingModernThis WorldCivilizationPossessedHuntersConveniencePretenseHuntedNintendoInteresting TimesDark HunterThanatosModern Conveniences
Author:Sherrilyn Kenyon
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“Simi, why did Acheron send you here? (Astrid) To protect you from Thanatos so that your sisters don’t get all freaky and destroy the world. Or something like that. I don’t know why all of you fear the end of the world. It’s not so bad, really. At least then akri’s mama be free. Then she wouldn’t be so cranky at the Simi all the time. (Simi) Ash’s mother is still alive? (Zarek) Oh, akri get mad whenever I tell that. Bad Simi. I not talk anymore. I need food. (Simi)”

KnowsWorldNeedsStillsEndsMotherAliveProtectMadAshesEnd Of The WorldMamaProtect YouFreakyCrankyThanatos
Author:Sherrilyn Kenyon
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“I have a flamthrower. (Zarek) You have a what? (Astrid) It pays to be prepared. (Zarek) Well. Those are nice for toasting marshmallows, but they’ll only make Thanatos mad. Regular fire won’t hurt him. I have this really neat gelatinous goo that comes out with my fire and it squirts my victims so that it don’t come off. Wanna see it? (Simi) No! (Zarek/Astrid) No? I don’t like that word. (Simi) We love you, Simi. We’re just scared of your goo. (Astrid) Oh, that I understand. Okay, you can live. (Simi)”

WellsHurtPayFireNiceLove YouOkayVictimMadPreparedScaredBe PreparedNeatMarshmallowThanatos
Author:Sherrilyn Kenyon
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“There!" Mars finished writing and threw the scroll at Octavian. "A prophecy. You can add it to your books, engrave it on the floor, whatever." Octavian read the scroll. "This says, 'Go to Alaska. Find Thanatos and free him. Come back by sundown on June twenty-fourth or die'." "Yes," Mars said. "Is that not clear?" "Well, my lord...usually prophecies are unclear. They're wrapped in riddles. They rhyme, and..." Mars casually popped another grenade off his belt. "Yes?" "The prophecy is clear!" Octavian announced. "A quest!”

WritingWellsSaidBookDiesLordClearTwentiesAddFinishedFourthQuestsMarsProphecyRhymeBeltsJuneAlaskaRiddleGrenadeUnclearThanatosEngraveOctavian
Author:Rick Riordan
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“The disenfranchised offspring, along with an entire ageless class of human discards, know only that they are doomed. They are drawn to spikes and pentagrams, gasoline, guitars screaming like whips, MIDI-programmed Thanatos, with sufficient amplitude to occupy that hollow space where consciousness once resided. These Dionysians obliterate themselves by removing filters, ultimately becoming insensate with sensation. This mode of behaviour originates in the superstitious belief that transcendence is acquired in the precise ratio by which reason is destroyed.”

KnowsHumansReasonBeliefSpaceConsciousnessClassBecomingGuitarDestroyedSufficientSensationsBehaviourDoomedPreciseTranscendenceHollowWhipsOffspringFiltersSuperstitiousRatiosGasolineAgelessDisenfranchisedThanatosMidiPentagrams
Author:Adam Parfrey
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