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98a9fd3 I see in the fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables, slaves with white collars, advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of the history man, no purpose or place, we have no Great war, no Great depression, our great war is a spiritual war, our great depression is our lives, we've been all raised by television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars, but we won't and we're slowly learning that fact. and we're very very pissed off. space-monkeys tyler-durden nihilism Chuck Palahniuk
779db64 I can't go on, I'll go on. tragedy fiction humor tragic-comedy nihilism existentialism drama Samuel Beckett
fe7e276 I was drawn to all the wrong things: I liked to drink, I was lazy, I didn't have a god, politics, ideas, ideals. I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. I didn't make for an interesting person. I didn't want to be interesting, it was too hard. What I really wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone. On the other hand, when I got drunk I screamed, went crazy, got all out of hand. One kind of behavior didn't fit the other. I didn't care. nihilism hedonism Charles Bukowski
1db90ec If you could be either God's worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose? tyler-durden nihilism Chuck Palahniuk
78f9811 Man was matter, that was Snowden's secret. Drop him out a window, and he'll fall. Set fire to him and he'll burn. Bury him and he'll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden's secret. Ripeness was all. nihilism Joseph Heller
d528e22 If we believe in nothing, if nothing has any meaning and if we can affirm no values whatsoever, then everything is possible and nothing has any importance. philosphy nihilism Albert Camus
76699d8 That's how we stay young these days: murder and suicide. nihilism theater Eugène Ionesco
c63ae16 I think we are just insects, we live a bit and then die and that's the lot. There's no mercy in things. There's not even a Great Beyond. There's nothing. insect nihilistic nihilism John Fowles
165a805 Nihilism is a natural consequence of a culture (or civilization) ruled and regulated by categories that mask manipulation, mastery and domination of peoples and nature. social-science nihilism Cornel West
6e2406b Disappear Here. The syringe fills with blood. You're a beautiful boy and that's all that matters. Wonder if he's for sale. People are afraid to merge. To merge. ellis disturbing nihilism Bret Easton Ellis
f9e45c5 "It's come at last," she thought, "the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache. When there wasn't enough food in the house you pretended that you weren't hungry so they could have more. In the cold of a winter's night you got up and put your blanket on their bed so they wouldn't be cold. You'd kill anyone who tried to harm them - I tried my best to kill that man in the hallway. Then one sunny day, they walk out in all innocence and they walk right into the grief that you'd give your life to spare them from." winter futility maternal nihilism mother Betty Smith
c6867e6 We are living in the era of premeditation and the perfect crime. Our criminals are no longer helpless children who could plead love as their excuse. On the contrary, they are adults and the have the perfect alibi: philosophy, which can be used for any purpose - even for transforming murderers into judges. philosophy nihilism Albert Camus
711fa7b Like the Nazis, the cadres of jihad have a death wish that sets the seal on their nihilism. The goal of a world run by an oligarchy in possession of Teutonic genes, who may kill or enslave other 'races' according to need, is not more unrealizable than the idea that a single state, let alone the globe itself, could be governed according to the dictates of an allegedly holy book. This mad scheme begins by denying itself the talents (and the rights) of half the population, views with superstitious horror the charging of interest, and invokes the right of Muslims to subject nonbelievers to special taxes and confiscations. Not even Afghanistan or Somalia, scenes of the furthest advances yet made by pro-caliphate forces, could be governed for long in this way without setting new standards for beggary and decline. racism islamic-banking somalia caliphate death-of-osama-bin-laden nazis theocracy nihilism osama-bin-laden jihad nazism fascism islam Christopher Hitchens
6e717cf You know, Dag and Claire smile a lot, as do many people I know. But I always wondered if there is something either mechanical or malignant to their smiles, for the way they keep their outer lips propped up seems a bit, not false, but protective. A minor realization hits me as I sit with the two of them. It is the realisation that the smiles that they wear in their daily lives are the same as the smiles worn by people who have been good-naturedly fleeced, but fleeced nonetheless, in public and on a New York sidewalk by card sharks, and who are unable because of social conventions to show their anger, who don't want to look like poor sports. ruined-youth nihilism Douglas Coupland
7a81914 He was simply someone who floated through our lives and didn't seem to care how flatly he perceived everyone or that he'd shared our secret failures with the world, showcasing the youthful indifference, the gleaming nihilism, glamorizing the horror of it all. nihilism glamour Bret Easton Ellis
18b11e1 Thus it amounts to the same thing whether one gets drunk alone or is a leader of nations. nihilism Jean-Paul Sartre
9b46140 The new atheists show a disturbing lack of understanding of or concern about the complexity and ambiguity of modern experience, and their polemic entirely fails to mention the concern for justice and compassion that, despite their undeniable failings, has been espoused by all three of the monotheisms. Religious fundamentalists also develop an exagerrated view of their enemy as the epitome of evil. This tendency makes critique of the new atheists too easy. They never discuss the work of such theologians as Bultmann or Tillich, who offer a very different view of religion and are closer to mainstream tradition than any fundamentalist. Unlike Feurerbach, Marx and Freud, the new atheists are not theologically literate. As one of their critics has remarked, in any military strategy it is essential to confront the enemy at its strongest point; failure to do so means that their polemic remains shallow and lacks intellectual depth. It is also morally and intellectually conservative. Unlike Feurerback, Marx, Ingersoll or Mill, these new Atheists show little concern about the poverty, injustice and humiliation that has inspired many of the atrocities they deplore; they show no yearning for a better world. Nor, like Nietzsche , Sartre or Camus, do they compel their readers to face up to the pointlessness and futility that ensue when people lack the resources to create a sense of meaning. They do not appear to consider the effect of such nihilism on people who do not have privileged lives and absorbing work. religion nihilism Karen Armstrong
652d153 "That's the trouble with you preachers," he said. "You've all got too good to believe in anything," and he drove off with a look of disgust and righteousness." -- righteousness clergy preachers nihilism Flannery O'Connor
7059c18 "One day about a month ago, I really hit bottom. You know, I just felt that in a Godless universe, I didn't want to go on living. Now I happen to own this rifle, which I loaded, believe it or not, and pressed it to my forehead. And I remember thinking, at the time, I'm gonna kill myself. Then I thought, what if I'm wrong? What if there is a God? I mean, after all, nobody really knows that. But then I thought, no, you know, maybe is not good enough. I want certainty or nothing. And I remember very clearly, the clock was ticking, and I was sitting there frozen with the gun to my head, debating whether to shoot. [The gun fires accidentally, shattering a mirror] All of a sudden, the gun went off. I had been so tense my finger had squeezed the trigger inadvertently. But I was perspiring so much the gun had slid off my forehead and missed me. And suddenly neighbors were, were pounding on the door, and, and I don't know, the whole scene was just pandemonium. And, uh, you know, I-I-I ran to the door, I-I didn't know what to say. You know, I was-I was embarrassed and confused and my-my-my mind was r-r-racing a mile a minute. And I-I just knew one thing. I-I-I had to get out of that house, I had to just get out in the fresh air and-and clear my head. And I remember very clearly, I walked the streets. I walked and I walked. I-I didn't know what was going through my mind. It all seemed so violent and un-unreal to me. And I wandered for a long time on the Upper West Side, you know, and-and it must have been hours. You know, my-my feet hurt, my head was-was pounding, and-and I had to sit down. I went into a movie house. I-I didn't know what was playing or anything. suicide nihilism existentialism Woody Allen
9400eb3 In every life there are events that reshape one's sense of existence. Afterward, all is different and the past is dimmed. meaning-of-life nihilism Annie Proulx
3d85565 I'm thinking maybe letting the latches burn is the right idea. Let everything burn until there's nothing left but ashes and cool rain. nihilism fire destruction Rodman Philbrick
a284814 There is no more hope for meaning. And without a doubt this is a good thing: meaning is mortal. Appearances, they, are immortal, invulnerable to the nihilism. This is where seduction begins. meaning imagery nihilism Jean Baudrillard
8f47261 ... the major enemy of black survival in America has been and is neither oppression nor exploitation but rather the nihilistic threat--that is, loss of hope and absence of meaning. For as long as hope remains and meaning is preserved, the possibility of overcoming oppression stays alive. The self-fulfilling prophecy of the nihilistic threat is that without hope there can be no future, that without meaning there can be no struggle. nihilism oppression Cornel West
0b36401 This place is like the Army: the shark ethic prevails--eat the wounded. In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. nihilism society Hunter S. Thompson
e77480d Era linistitor sa stiu ca seara nu voi mai trai. suicide relief-from-pain nihilism Hermann Hesse
1c1d870 It was sometimes feebly argued, as the political and military war against this enemy ran into difficulties, that it was 'a war without end.' I never saw the point of this plaintive objection. The war against superstition and the totalitarian mentality is an endless war. In protean forms, it is fought and refought in every country and every generation. In bin Ladenism we confront again the awful combination of the highly authoritarian personality with the chaotically nihilist and anarchic one. Temporary victories can be registered against this, but not permanent ones. As Bertold Brecht's character says over the corpse of the terrible Arturo Ui, the bitch that bore him is always in heat. But it is in this struggle that we develop the muscles and sinews that enable us to defend civilization, and the moral courage to name it as something worth fighting for. war bertold-brecht nihilism osama-bin-laden war-in-afghanistan-2001 totalitarianism authoritarianism war-on-terror islamism superstition Christopher Hitchens
4ec0a7b If a problem is irreversible, is there still an ethical obligation to try to reverse it? ethics-and-moral-philosophy global-warming hard-questions climate-change nihilism ethics Chuck Klosterman
0414402 In account after account of exorcisms the demonic voices will propound nihilism of one variety or another. nihilism J.R.R. Tolkien
a9ce3ec Am I to leave this world as a man who shies away from all conclusions? post-modernism nihilism Franz Kafka
55ac730 What do Chile, Biafra, the boat people, Bologna, or Poland matter? All of that comes to be annihilated on the television screen. We are in the era of events without consequences (and of theories without consequences). responsibility nihilism Jean Baudrillard
2af040c Their view; it is cosmic. Not of a man here, a child there, but an abstraction: race, land. Not of honorable men but of itself, honor; the abstract is real, the actual is invisible to them. but not good men, this good man. It is their sense of space and time. They see through the here, the now, into the vast black deep beyond, the unchanging. And that is fatal to life. Because eventually there will be no life; there was once only the dust particles in space, the hot hydrogen gases, nothing more, and it will come again. This is an interval, The cosmic process is hurrying on, crushing life back into the granite and methane; the wheel turns for all life. It is all temporary. And they--these madmen--respond to the granite, the dust, the longing of the inanimate; they want to aid abstraction the-abyss racism nihilism nazism Philip K. Dick
8b769f1 To say that life is meaningless is to express an attitude, not to state a fact meaning philosophy moral-philosophy nihilism purpose Peter Singer
806ec0a She got up and he saw the skin of her thigh for a moment above the artificial silk, and a prick of sexual desire disturbed him like a sickness. That was what happened to a man in the end: the stuffy room, the wakeful children, the Saturday night movements from the other bed. Was there no escape--anywhere--for anyone? It was worth murdering a world. nihilism Graham Greene
587585c The world is perhaps ultimately to be defined as a place of suffering. Man is a suffering animal, subject to ceaseless anxiety and pain and fear. suffering the-human-condition the-black-prince iris-murdoch worldview nihilism the-world pessimism Iris Murdoch
6f2422b Our planet is a freak which we shall destroy by our own wicked senseless activities in the next century. Our history will very soon come to an end. Now that God is dead, we are at last presented with the truth, yes, the truth remains, but it is on a short lead. Anyway, we are nothing and it matters not what we do. the-green-knight iris-murdoch end-of-the-world pessimistic meaningless nihilism doomsday Iris Murdoch
9c3d01a You see--I hope you never get there yourself--but some of us get to the point in life where we realise that nothing matters. Nothing fucking matters. nothing-matters world-weary the-only-story julian-barnes nihilism Julian Barnes
d4eba53 Thou art nothing. And all thy desires and memories and loves and dreams, nothing. The little dead earth-louse were of greater avail than thou, were it not nothing as thou art nothing. For all is nothing: earth and sky and sea and they that dwell therein. Nor shall this illusion comfort thee, if it might, that when thou art abolished these things shall endure for a season, stars and months return, and men grow old and die, and new men and women live and love and die and be forgotten. For what is it to thee, that shalt be as a blown-out flame? and all things in earth and heaven, and things past and things for to come, and life and death, and the mere elements of space and time, of being and not being, all shall be nothing unto thee; because thou shalt be nothing, for ever. nihilism E.R. Eddison
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