Sometimes I think I'm a nihilist because it doesn't matter, none of this matters. We're all following the will of some unknowable higher power, probably the stars manipulating our cellular magnets. We think we have all this agency, but do we? Do we really? Can you choose to be brave when you were born a coward? Can we be deprogrammed from the brainwashing that we grew up in? I think we can, but I think we need a lot of help.
Ottessa MoshfeghRelated topics
born brave cellular choose coward following help matter need nihilist none power unknowable brainwashing higher starsRelated quotes
The weed crushed and pressed by the heavy rock may slowly and gently grow up anew helped by the fresh air, sunshine, and sympathetic rain. On the other hand, the rock is often broken through exposure to nature and weathering. Life is a strong power to grow in tenderness; this fact may be considered as having a close relation with human life. At the same time tenderness has sometimes stronger power against stiffness or hardening due to extreme strain.
Kyuzo Mifune
Though it is folly to suppose that happiness is a matter of volition, and that we can make ourselves content and cheerful whenever we choose - a theory that many poor hypochondriacs are taunted with till they are nigh driven mad - yet, on the other hand, no sane mind is ever left without the power of self-discipline and self-control in a measure, which measure increases in proportion as it is exercised.
Dinah Craik
The human race is the most stupid and unfair kind of race. A lot of the runners don't even get decent sneakers or clean drinking water. Some runners are born with a massive head start, every possible help along the way and still the referees seem to be on their side. It's not surprising a lot of people have given up compeating altogether and gone to sit in the grandstand, eat junk and shout abuse. What the human race needs is a lot more streakers.
Banksy
It is hard living down the tempers we are born with. We all begin well, for in our youth there is nothing we are more intolerant of than our own sins writ large in others and we fight them fiercely in ourselves; but we grow old and we see that these our sins are of all sins the really harmless ones to own, nay that they give a charm to any character, and so our struggle with them dies away.
Gertrude Stein
If we discovered that, you know, space aliens were planning to attack and we needed a massive buildup to counter the space alien threat and really inflation and budget deficits took secondary place to that, this slump would be over in 18 months. ... There was a Twilight Zone episode like this in which scientists fake an alien threat in order to achieve world peace. Well, this time, we don't need it, we need it in order to get some fiscal stimulus.
Paul Krugman