Jack > Jack's Quotes

“The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line. The objection to it is not that it is predominantly painful, but that it is lacking in sense.”
― H.L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy

“Buddha suggested as much when he told his monks, “‘Actions exist, and also their consequences, but the person that acts does not.”
― John Horgan, Rational Mysticism: Spirituality Meets Science in the Search for Enlightenment

“A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms

“It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

“We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all.”
― Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

“I have all the defects of other people and yet everything they do seems to me inconceivable.”
― Emil Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born

“If I used to ask myself, over a coffin: “What good did it do the occupant to be born?”, I now put the same question about anyone alive.”
― Emil Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born

“He who is without hope is also without fear.

- On Psychology”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The Horrors and Absurdities of Religion

“What a bad conscience religion must have is to be judged by the fact that it is forbidden under pain of such severe punishment to mock it.

- On Religion”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The Horrors and Absurdities of Religion

“Religions are like glow-worms: they need darkness in order to shine. A certain degree of general ignorance is the condition for the existence of any religion.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The Horrors and Absurdities of Religion

“The term qualia refers to the internal, subjective, qualitative properties of experiences. This includes things like colors, tastes, and sensations (love, green, sweetness, sharpness, smoothness, and so on). And so, whether what we are perceiving is an accurate representation of the world depends largely on whether qualia, or our subjective experiences, are intrinsic properties of the world or merely a product of the mind—or some combination. Even if we can use tools to measure, test, and enhance our insights about the physical world, the final stop for everything is still the mind. We are always left with and limited by our cognitive and perceptual frameworks. Since we can never experience anything outside of the mind—including the mind itself—we can never know what anything is actually like outside of it. This is often referred to as the egocentric predicament.”
― Robert Pantano, The Art of Living an Absurd Existence: Paradoxes and Thought Experiments That Change the Way You Think

“If you think you're going to have a thoughtful discussion with someone who is toxic, be prepared for epic mindfuckery rather than conversational mindfulness. Malignant narcissists and sociopaths use word salad, circular conversations, ad hominem arguments, projection and gas lighting to disorient you and get you off track should you ever disagree with them or challenge them in any way. They do this in order to discredit, confuse and frustrate you, distract you from the main problem and make you feel guilty for being a human being with actual thoughts and feelings that might differ from their own. In their eyes, you are the problem if you happen to exist.”
― Shahida Arabi, Power: Surviving and Thriving After Narcissistic Abuse

“I looked at it out there. The figures that held my attention, as always (I too had an office at Buna, and spent many hours in front of its window), the figures that held my attention were not the men in stripes, as they queued or scurried in lines or entangled one another in a kind of centipedal scrum, moving at an unnatural speed, like extras in a silent film, moving faster than their strength or build could bear, as if in obedience to a frantic crank swivelled by a furious hand; the figures that held my attention were not the Kapos who screamed at the prisoners, nor the SS noncoms who screamed at the Kapos, nor the overalled company foremen who screamed at the SS noncoms. No. What held my eye were the figures in city business suits, designers, engineers, administrators from IG Farben plants in Frankfurt, Leverkusen, Ludwigshafen, with leather-bound notebooks and retractable yellow measuring tapes, daintily picking their way past the bodies of the wounded, the unconscious, and the dead.”
― Martin Amis, The Zone of Interest