Nihilism Quotes - Page 5

• If you live today, you breath in nihilism ... it's the gas you breathe. If I hadn't had the Church to fight it with or to tell me the necessity of fighting it, I would be the stinkingest logical positivist you ever saw right now.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Fighting, Church, Live For Today

  "This Lonesome Place" by Hilton Als, www.newyorker.com. January 29, 2001.

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• The man of the future who will redeem us not only from the hitherto reigning ideal but also from that which was bound to grow out of it, the great nausea, the will to nothingness, nihilism; this bell stroke of noon and of the great decision that liberates the will again and restores its goal to the earth and his hope to man; this Antichrist and anti-nihilist; this victor over God and nothingness - he must come one day.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Atheist, Men, Goal

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2009). “Basic Writings of Nietzsche”, p.532, Modern Library

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• The weird nihilism that permeates Mellon Collie is extremely relevant to what's going on right now. So many kids are intelligent and articulate, but they don't know what to do with themselves.

  Billy Corgan

  Kids, Intelligent, Relevant

  "Smashing Pumpkins: SPIN’s ‘Mellon Collie’ Cover Story, ‘Zero Worship’". Interview with Craig Marks, www.spin.com. October 23, 2015.

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• It is of note that for a long time moral nihilism was a kind of unquestioned default position in analytic moral philosophy.

  Torbjorn Tannsjo

  Philosophy, Long, Moral

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• In Nietzsche's view nihilism is not a Weltanschauung that occurs at some time and place or another; it is rather the basic character of what happens in Occidental history.

  Martin Heidegger

  Character, Views, Happens

  Martin Heidegger (1979). “Nietzsche: The will to power as art”

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• We must overthrow the material and moral conditions of our present-day life. . . . We must first purify our atmosphere and completely transform the milieu in which we live; for it corrupts our instinct and our will, and constricts our heart and our intelligence

  Mikhail Bakunin

  Heart, Atmosphere, Firsts

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• If critics and fanboys weren't suckers for simplistic nihilism and high-pressure marketing, Afterlife would be universally acclaimed as a visionary feat, superior to Inception and Avatar on every level.

  Armond White

  Afterlife, Marketing, Would Be

  "Armond White trollin': Calls Res Evil 'superior to Inception on every level.'" by Vince Mancini, uproxx.com. September 16, 2010.

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• The great soul of power extends far beyond states, to every domain of life, from families to international affairs. And throughout, every form of authority and domination bears a severe burden of proof. It is not self-legitimizing. And when it cannot bear the burden, as is commonly the case, it should be dismantled.

  Noam Chomsky

  Self, Burden Of Proof, Soul

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• People have to be engaged. Enough of nihilism! Enough of emptiness and defeatism! Fighting for a better world is not only the decent thing to do, it is also fun; it is meaningful and fulfilling.

  Andre Vltchek

  Meaningful, Fun, Fighting

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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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.

  George Pattison

  School, Kyoto, Unity

  "Towards hope". Interview with Richard Marshall, www.3ammagazine.com. July 18, 2014.

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• Your drive to produce hard-edged opinions stoked by hostility is likely a sign that you've been brainwashed by the pedestrian influences of pop nihilism.

  Rob Brezsny

  Opinion, Influence, Produce

  Rob Brezsny (2005). “Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings”, p.62, Frog Books

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• Science, Nietzsche had warned, is becoming a factory, and the result will be ethical nihilism.

  Rollo May

  Becoming, Existential, Ethical

  Rollo May (1994). “Existence”, p.36, Jason Aronson

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• I teach you beyond Man (superman). Man is something that shall be surpassed. What have you done to surpass him?

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Men, Done, Teach

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• ... a widespread secularization increasingly descends into a moral, intellectual, and spiritual nihilism that denies not only the One who is the Truth but the very idea of truth itself.

  Charles Colson

  Spiritual, Ideas, Intellectual

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• The Sexual Revolution is a complete rebellion against authority, natural and supernatural, even against the body and its needs, its natural functions of child bearing. This is not reverence for life, it is a great denial and more resembles Nihilism than the revolution that they think they are furthering.

  Dorothy Day

  Children, Thinking, Revolution

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• She soon learned, though, that giving weight to other people's opinions was creative nihilism; it was like being banished from the Land of No Words and exiled to the Land of All Bullshit.

  Unknown

  Giving, Bullshit, Creative

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• The deflation, or flattening out, of values in Modern art does not necessarily indicate an ethical nihilism. Quite the contrary; in opening our eyes to the rejected elements of existence, art may lead us to a more complete and less artificial celebration of the world.

  Unknown

  Art, Eye, World

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• The philosophy that prepares a revolution and the sentiment that underpins the philosophy have, in every case the two pillars of nihilism and mysticism.

  Unknown

  Philosophy, Revolution, Sentiments

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• I believe that we are all, openly or secretly, struggling against one or another kind of nihilism.

  Ellen Willis

  Believe, Struggle, Kind

  Ellen Willis (2011). “Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music”, p.65, U of Minnesota Press

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• Scientists are skeptics. It's unfortunate that the word 'skeptic' has taken on other connotations in the culture involving nihilism and cynicism. Really, in its pure and original meaning, it's just thoughtful inquiry.

  Unknown

  Taken, Thoughtful, Culture

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• The middle way is a view of life that avoids the extreme of misguided grasping born of believing there is something we can find, or buy, or cling to that will not change. And it avoids the despair and nihilism born from the mistaken belief that nothing matters, that all is meaningless.

  Unknown

  Believe, Despair, Belief

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• My grandfather was a practising Quaker. My father was a nihilist. But nihilism, if you like, is the beginning of faith anyway.

  Unknown

  Father, Nihilist, Quaker

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• The moral nihilism of celebrity culture is played out on reality television shows, most of which encourage a dark voyeurism into other people's humiliation, pain, weakness, and betrayal.

  Chris Hedges

  Pain, Betrayal, Dark

  Chris Hedges (2014). “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle”, p.30, Nation Books

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• Traditional history appears to be the defacto recognition of every evil deed that failed to be stopped or eliminated.

  Dagobert D. Runes

  Evil, Deeds, Recognition

  Dagobert D. Runes (2015). “Treasury of Thought”, p.29, Open Road Media

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• All human victories, all human progress, stand upon the inner force.

  Maria Montessori

  Victory, Progress, Force

  Maria Montessori (2003). “The Montessori Method”, p.20, Barnes & Noble Publishing

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