Nihilistic Quotes

“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.”
― John Fowles, The Collector

“The point is, there is no feasible excuse for what are, for what we have made of ourselves. We have chosen to put profits before people, money before morality, dividends before decency, fanaticism before fairness, and our own trivial comforts before the unspeakable agonies of others”
― Iain M. Banks, Complicity

“Sex is mathematics. Individuality no longer an issue. What does intelligence signify? Define reason. Desire - meaningless. Intellect is not a cure. Justice is dead.”
― Bret Easton Ellis

“Life is possible only by the deficiencies of our imagination and our memory.”
― Emil M. Cioran, A Short History of Decay

“My quietness is a consequence of my deeply entrenched nihilism. I don’t believe there is any real value in my or anyone else’s speaking, and I think that all of human existence is fundamentally unimportant.”
― Emily R. Austin, Oh Honey

“I am superhero! I am the Nihilist! My superpowers include logical detachment, emotional invincibility, and the ability to blend in anywhere. I work alone and am never compromised by romantic entanglements, and I don't have a costume because who the fuck cares?”
― Lianne Oelke, Nice Try, Jane Sinner

“Those who have been pulled out of the calm tranquility of the void and trapped for life to a bodily existence have a single consolation: everything that lives, also dies. Sooner or later, the tragedy will be forever over. Every life is destined to return to the sweet nothing from which it emerged without its consent. This is our consolation.”
― Selim Güre, The Occult of the Unborn

“Nothing made me happy.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, Homesick for Another World

“What is causing this mysterious perpetual air of inconvenience to slowly engulf the evening. It is not merely emptiness but an awakening in itself about nothingness.
Leave behind what was never yours and accept the fact that momentary pleasures and hideous treasures will perish too soon; so will your pride be snatched away by nothing. Mathematicians often say an instance tends to infinity. But, in actual sense, is anything even close to infinity?
Nullify yourself and disappear into zero, for that is what we call the beginning; the beginning of the end.”
― Ranjani Ramachandran

“I'm made for misery, misery, misery, I'm made to be destroyed!”
― Iris Murdoch, The Message to the Planet

“A desire to attain short-term happiness while laboring under the weight a looming death sentence is an obvious paradox. Suicide, as distinguished from medical euthanasia, is an emotional reaction to the absurdity of life. Suicide is a panic-stricken reflex induced by the sinister twins of fear and foreboding. A rational person does not commit self-murder because their longing for happiness is incongruent with their present day reality. Suicide is a superficial response to hard times; suicide is a pusillanimous solution. A more measured reaction and, therefore, ultimately a braver and logical tactic is to meet life’s pillbox of irrationality headfirst. Upon soul-searching reflection, a thinking person accepts that while he or she might never comprehend a unifying meaning of life they still prefer to experience each permitted day of life to the fullest. A pragmatic person accepts the cold fact that happiness is fleeting and death is inevitable. By acknowledging and accepting the underlying absurdity of life, the prisoner awakens to discover his own humanity. By refusing to cooperate with death, by working each day to expand personal consciousness, by savoring each moment of life regardless of its hazards, adversities, misfortunes, and seemingly lack of overriding purpose, an impertinent ward of time transcends his or her incarnate incarceration.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“I'll never be happy, how can you love me, I'm awful, I'm covered with spiders, I'm doomed.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Message to the Planet

“When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important,
and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him,
he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply
the fact that there are no brick and no temples. Any visible expression
of nature would surely be pelleted with his jeers.

Then, if there be no tangible thing to hoot he feels, perhaps, the
desire to confront a personification and indulge in pleas, bowed to one
knee, and with hands supplicant, saying: "Yes, but I love myself.”
― Stephen Crane, The Open Boat

“Do you know why the world is moving? Or why things are the way they are? It’s because the vast majority of people don’t ask themselves one simple question. ‘And then what?’ I want to crack this exam. ‘And then what?’ I want to elope with her. ‘And then what?’ I want that luxury car. ‘And then what?’ I want to be famous. ‘And then what?’ Do you understand what I want to expound? We all progress, taking one step at a time. We all progress with one goal under consideration. But no matter how many steps we take, there still remains a deep yearning for something that we can’t explain. A nihilist knows that it is a vicious circle. A nihilist knows that it is all ‘pointless.’ (Yes, true nihilism is spirituality inverted). But thank God, nihilists don’t rule this world. And thank God, nor do the spiritualists. Else the whole world would be asking, ‘And then what?”
― Abhaidev, The World's Most Frustrated Man

“It is just a simple question - ‘And then what?’ But its consequence? Manifold!”
― Abhaidev, The World's Most Frustrated Man

“Înainte de a întâlni absurdul,omul cotidian trăiește cu un scop,cu grija viitorului sau cu grija care se justifica.El își evaluează șansele,se bizuie pe ceea ce va fi mai târziu,pe pensie sau pe munca fiilor lui.Mai crede că își poate orîndui viața după voia lui.De fapt,acționează ca și cum ar fi liber,chiar dacă toate faptele nu fac decât să contrazică această libertate.După ce a descoperit absurdul,totul e zdruncinat din temelii.Ideea că "sînt",felul meu de a acționa ca și cum totul ar avea un sens sunt dezmințite amețitor de absurditatea unei morți posibile.A te gândi la ziua de mâine,a-ți fixa un scop,a avea preferințe,toate presupun credința în libertate,chiar dacă îți dai seama că nu o ai.Dar,în acea clipă,știu că acea libertate superioară,acea libertate de a fi,singura pe care se poate întemeia un adevăr,nu există.Nu sunt liber nici pentru că mă perpetuez,ci sclav,și mai cu seamă sclav fără speranța unei revoluții eterne,lipsit de arma disprețului.”
― Albert Camus, Fața și reversul; Nunta; Mitul lui Sisif; Omul revoltat; Vara

“Lilith’s smile widened, as she scoffed, “Civilised beings? Millennia come and gone, and the only conclusion I can come to is that your kind should have stayed in the trees.”
― Daniel MacKillican, Ama

“Oh Irina, there's so much life for us."

"Is there? I feel I have no life. There's nothing in front of me but a black wall.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Message to the Planet

“I don't care about my life.”
― Andrew Martin, Early Work

“The truth is, I was never a nihilist at all. I just wore nihilism like a shield to protect my unrelenting tragic optimism.”
― Sean Norris, Heaven and Hurricanes

“Există un cuvânt minunat:nimic.Nu te gândi la nimic.Gândește-te doar la clovnul care plânge în cadă,și căruia papucii îi șiroiesc a cafea.”
― Heinrich Böll, The Clown

“I mean he's honest, he sees the terrible things, he doesn't try to cover them up or imagine them away — the evil of the world, the senselessness of it all, the rottenness of us ordinary people, our fantasy life, our selfishness —”
― Iris Murdoch, The Green Knight

“I ceased some time ago to believe in goodness.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Sacred and Profane Love Machine

“Let’s say -for the sake of the argument-, whatever you do, doesn’t matter in the great scheme of things. But the thing is we don’t live in the great scheme of things. We live only in a part of it. So, even if it doesn’t matter in the great scheme of things, it doesn’t matter that it doesn’t matter.”
― Cave Man, Modern Human's Handbook

“Dandelion to Geralt:
Change your job and become a priest. You'd be decent with your scruples, your morality, your knowledge of people's nature and every single thing. The fact that you don't believe in any gods shouldn't be a problem. I know very few prists who do. Become a priest and stop complaining about yourself.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski

“Perhaps after all not to have been born is best. How near the human soul must be to nothingness if it can be so tossed.”
― Iris Murdoch

“Een mooie avond,' zei Frits. 'Zoek jij ook graag de ellende van deze wereld? Wandel je Zondags ook graag op kerkhoven? De meeste mensen denken nergens aan.”
― Gerard Reve, De avonden