Existentialism Quotes

“...Life does not follow the continuous flow of logical argument and that one often has to risk moving beyond the limits of the rational in order to live life to the fullest.”
― Thomas R. Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction

“Because of the almost irresistible pull toward conformity in modern society, what we shall call ‘existential individuality’ is an achievement, and not a permanent one at that. We are born biological beings but we must become existential individuals by accepting responsibility for our actions. This is an application of Nietzsche’s advice to ‘become what you are’. Many people never do acknowledge such responsibility but rather flee their existential individuality into the comfort of the faceless crowd. As”
― Thomas R. Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction

“This has led some to misunderstand him as claiming that it doesn’t matter what you believe so long as you believe it. Though scarcely espousing religious relativism, as a deeply committed Christian, Kierkegaard was more concerned with combating lukewarm or purely nominal religious belief than with apologetics.”
― Thomas R. Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction

“The existentialists are not irrationalists in the sense that they deny the validity of logical argument and scientific reasoning. They simply question the ability of such reasoning to access the deep personal convictions that guide our lives.”
― Thomas R. Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction

“The way of objective reflection makes the subject accidental, and thereby transforms existence into something indifferent, something vanishing. Away from the subject the objective way of reflection leads to the objective truth, and while the subject and his subjectivity become indifferent, the truth also becomes indifferent, and this indifference is precisely its objective validity; for all interest, like all decisiveness, is rooted in subjectivity”
― Thomas R. Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction

“Existence precedes essence. What you are (your essence) is the result of your choices (your existence) rather than the reverse. Essence is not destiny. You are what you make yourself to be.”
― Thomas R. Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction

“Time has its own viscosity, as Michel Foucault remarked. Ekstatic temporality embodies its flow.”
― Thomas R. Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction

“Hostile to the past, impatient of the present, and cheated of the future, we were much like those whom men’s justice, or hatred, forces to live behind prison bars.”
― Thomas R. Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction

“If ‘time is of the essence’, and the existentialist will insist that it is, then part of who we are is our manner of living the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet’ of our existence, made concrete by how we handle our immersion in the everyday.”
― Thomas R. Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction

“the notion of what existentialists call ‘ekstatic’ temporality adds a qualitative and personal dimension to the phenomenon of time-consciousness. For the existentialist, the value and meaning of each temporal dimension of lived time is a function of our attitudes and choices.”
― Thomas R. Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction

“Bertrand Russell, scarcely an existentialist: can anyone really believe that the revulsion they feel when they witness the gratuitous infliction of pain is simply an expression of the fact that they don’t happen to like it?”
― Thomas R. Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction

“each philosopher realized that life does not follow the continuous flow of logical argument and that one often has to risk moving beyond the limits of the rational in order to live life to the fullest. As Kierkegaard remarked, many people have offered proofs for the immortality of the soul, but Socrates, after hypothesizing that the soul might be immortal, risked his life with that possibility in mind.”
― Thomas R. Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction

“existentialism represents a long tradition in the history of philosophy in the West, extending back at least to Socrates (469–399 bc). This is the practice of philosophy as ‘care of the self’ (epimeleia heautou). Its focus is on the proper way of acting rather than on an abstract set of theoretical truths.”
― Thomas R. Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction

“I devote Chapter 5 to the issue of a ‘chastened individualism’, as the existentialists try to conceive of social solidarity in a manner that will enhance rather than compromise individual freedom and responsibility, which remain non-negotiable.”
― Thomas R. Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction

“While the supreme value of existentialist thought is commonly acknowledged to be freedom, its primary virtue is authenticity.”
― Thomas R. Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction

“The limiting of the knowable to the quantifiable was itself a value that was not quantifiable”
― Thomas R. Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction

“Existentialism is commonly associated with Left-Bank Parisian cafes and the ‘family’ of philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir who gathered there in the years immediately following the liberation of Paris at the end of World War II. One imagines offbeat, avant-garde intellectuals, attached to their cigarettes, listening to jazz as they hotly debate the implications of their new-found political and artistic liberty. The mood is one of enthusiasm, creativity, anguished self-analysis, and freedom – always freedom.
Though this reflects the image projected by the media of the day and doubtless captures the spirit of the time, it glosses over the philosophical significance of existentialist thought, packaging it as a cultural phenomenon of a certain historical period. That is perhaps the price paid by a manner of thinking so bent on doing philosophy concretely rather than in some abstract and timeless manner. The existentialists’ urge for contemporary relevance fired their social and political commitment. But it also linked them with the problems of their day and invited subsequent generations to view them as having the currency of yesterday’s news.
Such is the misreading of existentialist thought that I hope to correct in this short volume. If it bears the marks of its post-war appearance, existentialism as a manner of doing philosophy and a way of addressing the issues that matter in people’s lives is at least as old as philosophy itself. It is as current as the human condition which it examines.”
― Thomas R. Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction

“The unique point of view from which the author can present the world to those freedoms whose concurrence he wishes to bring about is that of a world to be impregnated always with more freedom. It would be inconceivable that this unleashing of generosity provoked by the writer could be used to authorize an injustice, and that the reader could enjoy his freedom while reading a work which approves or accepts or simply abstains from condemning the subjection of man by man. In”
― Thomas R. Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction