“Man accepts death but not the hour of his death. To die any time, except when one has to die!”
― The Trouble With Being Born
― The Trouble With Being Born
“Animal banished from life, man's condition is tragic, for he no longer finds fulfillment in life's simple values. For animals, life is all there is; for man, life is a question mark. An irreversible question mark, for man has never found, nor will ever find, any answers. Life not only has no meaning; it can never have one.”
― On the Heights of Despair
― On the Heights of Despair
“When you find human society disagreeable and feel yourself justified in flying to solitude, you can be so constituted as to be unable to bear the depression of it for any length of time, which will probably be the case if you are young. Let me advise you, then, to form the habit of taking some of your solitude with you into society, to learn to be to some extent alone even though you are in company; not to say at once what you think, and, on the other hand, not to attach too precise a meaning to what others say; rather, not to expect much of them, either morally or intellectually, and to strengthen yourself in the feeling of indifference to their opinion, which is the surest way of always practicing a praiseworthy toleration. If you do that, you will not live so much with other people, though you may appear to move amongst them: your relation to them will be of a purely objective character. This precaution will keep you from too close contact with society, and therefore secure you against being contaminated or even outraged by it. Society is in this respect like a fire—the wise man warming himself at a proper distance from it; not coming too close, like the fool, who, on getting scorched, runs away and shivers in solitude, loud in his complaint that the fire burns.”
― Essays and Aphorisms
― Essays and Aphorisms
“No one reveals himself as he is; we all wear a mask and play a role.
- On Psychology”
― The Horrors and Absurdities of Religion
- On Psychology”
― The Horrors and Absurdities of Religion
“A man is never happy, but spends his whole life in striving after something that he thinks will make him so; he seldom attains his goal, and when he does, it is only to be disappointed; he is mostly shipwrecked in the end, and comes into harbour with mast and rigging gone. And then, it is all one whether he is happy or miserable; for his life was never anything more than a present moment always vanishing; and now it is over.”
― Studies in Pessimism: The Essays
― Studies in Pessimism: The Essays
Tuomas’s 2025 Year in Books
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