#existentialism

"Part of being of a true existentialist is wanting to be what we make ourselves be by the way we choose to act, as opposed to making excuses for the way we act and regretting it."

"I took a test in Existentialism. I left all the answers blank and got 100."

"Which of us has not felt that the character we are reading in the printed page is more real than the person standing beside us?"

"Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

"[E]very man ought to say to himself, "Am I really the kind of man who has the right to act in such a way that humanity might guide itself by my actions?"

"Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies."

"Among all the creatures of creation, the gods favor us: We are the only ones who can empathize with their problems."

"Mother used to say that however miserable one is, there’s always something to be thankful for. And each morning, when the sky brightened and light began to flood my cell, I agreed with her."

"There is no unmoving mover behind the movement. It is only movement. It is not correct to say that life is moving, but life is movement itself. Life and movement are not two different things. In other words, there is no thinker behind the thought. Thought itself is the thinker. If you remove the thought, there is no thinker to be found."

"We are gods with anuses."

"You look up when you wish to be exalted. And I look down because I am exalted."

"Perhaps the Creator of this strange place knows us better than we know ourselves. Perhaps humanity was meant to eternally ponder the purpose and importance of our own existence. If we were assured of either, we’d be intolerable creatures."

"Whether we like it or not, the one justification for the existence of all religions is death, they need death as much as we need bread to eat."

"Each suburban wife struggles with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night- she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question-- 'Is this all?"

"Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I’ve said before, bugs in amber."

"It is interesting to note how many of the great scientific discoveries begin as myths."

"Having just enough life to enjoy being dead."

"Today, however, we are having a hard time living because we are so bent on outwitting death."

"The priest therefore saw what the anchorite could not. That God needs no witness. Neither to himself nor against. The truth is rather that if there were no God then there could be no witness for there could be no identity to the world but only each man's opinion of it. The priest saw that there is no man who is elect because there is no man who is not. To God every man is a heretic."

"The desire for a strong faith is not the proof of a strong faith, rather the opposite. If one has it one may permit oneself the beautiful luxury of skepticism: one is secure enough, fixed enough for it."