Derek > Derek's Quotes

“Philosophy does not serve the State or the Church, who have other concerns. It serves no established power. The use of philosophy is to sadden. A philosophy that saddens no one, that annoys no one, is not a philosophy. It is useful for harming stupidity, for turning stupidity into something shameful.”
― Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy

“A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that's just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it's a joke.”
― Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or, Part I

“O, what a world of unseen visions and heard silences, this insubstantial country of the mind! What ineffable essences, these touchless rememberings and unshowable reveries! And the privacy of it all! A secret theater of speechless monologue and prevenient counsel, an invisible mansion of all moods, musings, and mysteries, an infinite resort of disappointments and discoveries. A whole kingdom where each of us reigns reclusively alone, questioning what we will, commanding what we can. A hidden hermitage where we may study out the troubled book of what we have done and yet may do. An introcosm that is more myself than anything I can find in a mirror. This consciousness that is myself of selves, that is everything, and yet is nothing at all - what is it?”
― Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

“Look into my soul, I know - everything you need is in there. It has to be. Because I've never sold my soul to anyone! It's mine, it's human! Figure out yourself what I want - because I know it can't be bad! The hell with it all, I just can't think of a thing other than those words of his - HAPPINESS, FREE, FOR EVERYONE, AND LET NO ONE BE FORGOTTEN!”
― Arkady Strugatsky, Roadside Picnic

“God cheats men into living on by hiding how blessed it is to die.”
― Lucanus, De bello civili libri X (Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana)

“I am not poor, I am not rich; nihil est, nihil deest, I have little, I want nothing: all my treasure is in Minerva’s tower...I live still a collegiate student...and lead a monastic life, ipse mihi theatrum [sufficient entertainment to myself], sequestered from those tumults and troubles of the world...aulae vanitatem, fori ambitionem, ridere mecum soleo [I laugh to myself at the vanities of the court, the intrigues of public life], I laugh at all.”
― Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy

“It is manifest that behind the so-called curtain which is supposed to conceal the inner world, there is nothing to be seen unless we go behind it ourselves, as much in order that we may see, as that there may be something behind there which can be seen.”
― Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit

“There is nothing in the understanding which has not come from the senses, except the understanding itself, or the one who understands.”
― Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Philosophical Essays

“A knife is neither true nor false, but anyone impaled on its blade is in error.”
― Rene Daumal, Mount Analogue

“When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being