Notes on Suicide Quotes

“Nietzsche would have put it, we need art in order not to die from the truth.”
― Simon Critchley, Suicide

“The problem with the suicidally depressed is that they are too optimistic. Nothing will be saved by taking our own lives, and a belief in suicide as the only way out derives from an arrogant over-estimation of our capacity for salvation through self-destruction. Therefore, why not stay a while and enjoy the tender indifference of the world that holds itself out for our attention and our seemingly infinite capacity for disappointment?”
― Simon Critchley, Notes on Suicide

“I think Oscar Wilde is right when he defines love in De Profundis as giving what one does have and receiving that over which one has no power. To love is to commit oneself to another not without the guarantee that love will be returned, but with the hope that it might be. Love takes place in the subjunctive mood: it may be, it might be, would that it were the case. The logic of love is akin to the logic of grace.”
― Simon Critchley, Notes on Suicide

“Never to be outdone, my wife, who also happens to be a psychoanalyst and therefore a specialist in ambivalence, wrote the following to me: ‘Dear Simon, Break a leg, or all your legs. I better brake fast. With all my love-hate, Jamieson (who is about to drive us off a cliff)”
― Simon Critchley, Suicide

“Una notable ventaja que debemos a la filosofía consiste en el soberano antídoto que nos ofrece contra las supersticiones y la falsa religión. Todos los otros remedios contra esa pestilente enfermedad son en vano o, en cualquier caso, de dudosa utilidad.”
― Simon Critchley, Suicide

“Cuando la vida se detenga aquí y nos enfrentemos al interminable, cambiante e indiferente mar pardo y gris, cuando nos abramos ante esa indiferencia, con ternura, sin languidecer, sin compadecernos de nosotros mismos, quejarnos o esperar recompensas o premios rutilantes, entonces quizás nos hayamos convertido, durante ese solo instante, en algo que ha resistido y seguirá haciéndolo, en alguien que puede hallar cierto grado de autosuficiencia: aquí y ahora.”
― Simon Critchley, Suicide

“No puedo luchar más. Sé que te estoy destrozando la vida ... Verás que no siquiera esto puedo escribirlo bien. No puedo leer. Cuanto quiero decirte es que toda la felicidad de mi vida te la debo a ti.”
― Simon Critchley, Suicide

“Cioran escribe que «sólo se suicidan los optimistas, los optimistas que ya no logran serlo. Los demás, no teniendo ninguna razón para vivir, ¿por qué la tendrían para morir?»”
― Simon Critchley, Suicide

“Quien no haya concebido jamás su propia anulación, quien no haya presentido el recurso a la cuerda, a la bala, al veneno o al mar, es un recluso envilecido o un gusano reptante sobre la carroña cósmica.”
― Simon Critchley, Suicide

“Este mundo puede quitarnos todo, puede prohibirnos todo, pero no está en el poder de nadie impedir nuestra autoabolición.”
― Simon Critchley, Suicide

“El suicidio, bajo mi punto de vista, no constituye un crimen legal ni moral, y nadie debería considerarlo como tal.”
― Simon Critchley, Suicide

“After all, what is love? I think Oscar Wilde is right when he defines love in De Profundis as giving what one does have and receiving that over which one has no power. To love is to commit oneself to anoth­er not without the guarantee that love will be returned, but with the hope that it might be. Love takes place in the subjunctive mood: it may be, it might be, would that it were the case. The logic of love is akin to the logic of grace. I give something that is truly beyond my capacity to control, I commit myself to it completely, but there can be no assurance that love will be reciprocated. At any point in a love relation, the beloved can and must be able to say ‘I love you not.’ If this is not the case, if the beloved cannot refuse love, then love is reduced to co­ercive control, to contractual obligation and command. None of these is love.”
― Simon Critchley, Notes on Suicide

“The question of the meaning of life is the wrong question and I humbly suggest that we stop asking it. Our minds will never stop rummaging through the drawers of self-doubt, self-disgust and self-pity in order to find some piece of forgotten dirty moral laundry. What is important is the ability to get life to stand still in order to look at it tenderly and with care, to cultivate slower forms of attention without renouncing life in some sovereign violent act. One should go on.”
― Simon Critchley, Notes on Suicide