Dying for Ideas Quotes

“The politician mingles with people and shares in the warmth of assembled bodies, while the philosopher always keeps the distance. He is all coldness. The philosopher has almost no friends, and does not even look like he needs one. In the Greek sense of the word, the philosopher is an idiot (idiōtēs). Parrēsía does not always kill the philosopher, but in many cases it turns him into a social cripple.”
― Costică Brădățan, Dying for Ideas: The Dangerous Lives of the Philosophers

“It is not only telling, but perhaps also appropriate, that what the West takes to be its first major philosopher was executed because of his stubbornness. Ever since Socrates’ death, stubbornness has been inseparable from the history of Western philosophy. Stubbornness is also what makes the philosopher a good character in a story, what gets him in trouble and sets the plot in motion, what promises a climax and a fine ending.”
― Costică Brădățan, Dying for Ideas: The Dangerous Lives of the Philosophers

“The body speaks, often persuasively, but the dying body is more convincing because it delivers its performance under the most difficult of circumstances. You can always ignore speech-makers, even the most entertaining of them, but you cannot take your eyes away from a dying body with something to say.”
― Costică Brădățan, Dying for Ideas: The Dangerous Lives of the Philosophers

“Self-immolation awakens an ancestral layer of our being: it occasions the sudden experience of the “sacred,” even in the absence of any notion of God. Here, “sacred” has no relation to specific religious beliefs, but is returned to its primary sense of sacer: that of a radical separation, of being “cut off.” In this sense, the sacred is defined by an ontological difference from that which is merely human.”
― Costică Brădățan, Dying for Ideas: The Dangerous Lives of the Philosophers

“...when you’ve managed to kill your fear of death, you have crossed an important ontological threshold. In a
certain sense, you are not merely human anymore. What ties us to the earth, what keeps us in a state of existential dependency, is not some external force, but something we carry within ourselves: our own fear of
death. Should we manage to get rid of it, we would transcend human nature altogether.”
― Costică Brădățan, Dying for Ideas: The Dangerous Lives of the Philosophers

“And yet if there is a form of exit from this world that would suit Bruno’s philosophy, it is death by fire. “Death” is not even the right term here, for in Bruno’s universe you don’t really die, you just take another form—you never retire from the theatrum mundi, you only put on another mask. As the visible expression of an infinite God, the universe too is boundless. Life is never-ending, always recycling itself, and death is nothing but a moment in this infinite cycle of life.”
― Costică Brădățan, Dying for Ideas: The Dangerous Lives of the Philosophers

“The limit-situation in which martyr-philosophers find themselves is of such a nature that it requires them not to think through their bodies, as normally happens, but against them. Since our embodied selves are designed to maintain and preserve life, philosophers “dying for ideas,” to be successful, have to transcend their embodiment. Their bodies are now not something to live with, but something to overcome, re-signify and destroy in the process.”
― Costică Brădățan, Dying for Ideas: The Dangerous Lives of the Philosophers

“...the philosophers’ own biographies become highly relevant. If a philosophy is validated only to the extent that it is embodied in the philosopher’s life, then that life is intrinsically philosophical, and examining it is not unlike studying a philosophical text. Just as in a philosopher’s text we look for plausibility of evidence and soundness of arguments, so in a philosopher’s life we seek consistency of behavior and symmetry between discourse and action.”
― Costică Brădățan, Dying for Ideas: The Dangerous Lives of the Philosophers

“Revolutionaries and spin doctors alike never stop talking about 'changing the world,' which can result in a social anesthetization of sorts. Too much revolutionary talk may be the safest way to kill a revolution before it even starts. Soon enough we feel no discomfort living in a world that, in spite of all appearances, does not really change.”
― Costică Brădățan, Dying for Ideas: The Dangerous Lives of the Philosophers

“Mockery involves a distancing of the mocker from the mocked object, putting it into perspective, and toying with it. Based on subversion and derision, mockery is obviously dependent on the existence of something 'out there,' with reference to which the act of mocking remains meaningful. In the absence of that external object, mockery loses any meaning and turns against the mocker. That’s why mockery may also be seen as a form of appreciation, even of secret love.”
― Costică Brădățan, Dying for Ideas: The Dangerous Lives of the Philosophers

“We need, then, to look at philosophy with new eyes: ultimately philosophizing is not about thinking, speaking or writing—not even about performing them in a bold, courageous fashion—but about something else: deciding to put your body on the line.”
― Costică Brădățan, Dying for Ideas: The Dangerous Lives of the Philosophers

“... in relation to what philosophy ultimately is, writing is bound to remain something preliminary. For no matter how good philosophers are as writers, their philosophy does not lie in their writing, but elsewhere. In a certain sense, philosophy begins where writing ends. Writing is rehearsal, dress rehearsal at best, but not yet performance. Philosophy is performance.”
― Costică Brădățan, Dying for Ideas: The Dangerous Lives of the Philosophers

“To die is to give your life a sense of composition. Death is the skillful editor that puts your life together so that it comes across as intelligible. An endless human life would be a mineral existence of sorts—something bloodless, undifferentiated, unutterable, as dead as a stone. You would spend it mindlessly, purposelessly, geological age after geological age. At a more practical level, even if such a life were possible, I am not sure it would be desirable. As with any story, a biography—even the most interesting one—that is stretched beyond a certain point never fails to become boring. To stretch it even further would be to court horror. If we were made immortal one day, we might die of meaninglessness the next.”
― Costică Brădățan, Dying for Ideas: The Dangerous Lives of the Philosophers

“... these people: they hurry to gorge on the pleasures of life at the very moment that death approaches. What increases their lust for life is precisely the presence of death. The attitude may seem irrational, yet there is something marvelous about it. On the verge of annihilation, these people discover the miracle of
existence, and are celebrating.”
― Costică Brădățan, Dying for Ideas: The Dangerous Lives of the Philosophers

“...life needs death for reasons of self-realization. It often happens that we realize how precious something is only when we lose it, or are about to; it is the prospect of its sudden absence that teaches us how to appreciate the value and significance of its presence.”
― Costică Brădățan, Dying for Ideas: The Dangerous Lives of the Philosophers