“I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain. One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself, forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
―
―
“In the whole vast dome of living nature there reigns an open violence. A kind of prescriptive fury which arms all the creatures to their common doom: as soon as you leave the inanimate kingdom you find the decree of violent death inscribed on the very frontiers of life. You feel it already in the vegetable kingdom: from the great catalpa to the humblest herb, how many plants die and how many are killed; but, from the moment you enter the animal kingdom, this law is suddenly in the most dreadful evidence. A Power, a violence, at once hidden and palpable. . . has in each species appointed a certain number of animals to devour the others. . . And who [in this general carnage] exterminates him who will exterminate all others? Himself. It is man who is charged with the slaughter of man. . . The whole earth, perpetually steeped in blood, is nothing but a vast altar upon which all that is living must be sacrificed without end, without measure, without pause, until the consummation of things, until evil is extinct, until the death of death.”
― St Petersburg Dialogues: Or Conversations on the Temporal Government of Providence
― St Petersburg Dialogues: Or Conversations on the Temporal Government of Providence
“They cannot understand as yet that we are not fighting a political party but a sect of murderers of all contemporary spiritual culture.”
―
―
“The lowest depth to which people can sink before God is defined by the word “Journalist”. If I were a father and had a daughter who was seduced, I should not despair over her; I would hope for her salvation. But if I had a son who became a journalist and continued to be one for five years, I would give him up.”
―
―
“The most brazen humiliation ever inflicted upon God and mankind, justifying all the curses of the synagogue, is to be found in the 'sive' of the formula Deus sive Natura.”
― Glossarium : Aufzeichnungen der Jahre 1947 - 1951
― Glossarium : Aufzeichnungen der Jahre 1947 - 1951
Ahte’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Ahte’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Ahte
Lists liked by Ahte


























