#existent

There are other men, and other lives, and time still to be. ↗

— J.R.R. Tolkien

#inspirational #inspirational

Alan had never been stabbed or shot or punctured or broken. Were scars the best evidence of living? If we have not survived something, and thus were certain that we'd lived, we could scar ourselves, couldn't we? ↗

— Dave Eggers

#life

[Y]ou are here to learn something. Don’t try to figure out what it is. This can be frustrating and unproductive. ↗

— Steven L. Peck

#existentialism #frustration #hell #life #wisdom

CLOV: Do you believe in the life to come? HAMM: Mine was always that. ↗

— Samuel Beckett

#life

Regardless of the staggering dimensions of the world about us, the density of our ignorance, the risks of catastrophes to come, and our individual weakness within the immense collectivity, the fact remains that we are absolutely free today if we choose to will our existence in its finiteness, a finiteness which is open on the infinite. And in fact, any man who has known real loves, real revolts, real desires, and real will knows quite well that he has no need of any outside guarantee to be sure of his goals; their certitude comes from his own drive. ↗

— Simone de Beauvoir

#feminism #philosophy #love

J'ai envie de partir, de m'en aller quelque part où je serais vraiment à ma place, où je m'emboîterais... Mais ma place n'est nulle part; je suis de trop. ↗

— Jean-Paul Sartre

#existentialism #men

There is no human nature, since there is no god to conceive it. ↗

— Jean-Paul Sartre

#sartre #nature

In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the haughtiest and most mendacious minute of "world history"- yet only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die. ↗

— Friedrich Nietzsche

#philosophy #nature

At the beginning of human history, man lost some of the basic animal instincts in which an animal's behavior is embedded and by which it is secured. Such security, like paradise, is closed to man forever; man has to make choices. In addition to this, however, man has suffered another loss in his more recent development inasmuch as the traditions which buttressed his behavior are now rapidly diminishing. No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition tells him what he ought to do; sometimes he does not even know what he wishes to do. Instead, he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people tell him to do (totalitarianism). ↗

— Viktor E. Frankl

#conformity

You say 'I' and you are proud of this word. But greater than this- although you will not believe in it - is your body and its great intelligence, which does not say 'I' but performs 'I'. ↗

— Friedrich Nietzsche

#intelligence