Existentialist Quotes
Albert Camus, a great humanist and existentialist voice, pointed out that to commit to a just cause with no hope of success is absurd. But then, he also noted that not committing to a just cause is equally absurd. But only one choice offers the possibility for dignity. And dignity matters. Dignity matters.
David Simon
To be an existentialist, one must be able to feel oneself - one must know one's desires, one's rages, one's anguish, one must be aware of the character of one's frustration and know what would satisfy it. The over-civilized man can be an existentialist only if it is chic, and deserts it quickly for the next chic.
Norman Mailer
Well, [Kepler] reminded me of myself – the little man running desperately in circles, trying to find an explanation for the world, for his place in it, to find a plausible system, to account for reality – and never finding it. Finding lots of rules and laws which are very important, but never actually finding his own way into what it is to be in the world – very much an existentialist before his time, I think.
John Banville
Anarchist reactionary, running-dog revisionist
Hindu, Muslim, Catholic creation, evolutionist
Rational, romantic, mystic, cynical, idealist
Minimal expressionist, post-modern neo-symbolist
Armchair rocket scientist, graffiti existentialist
Deconstruction primitive performance photo-realist
Be-bop or a one-drop or a hip-hop, lite-pop-metallist
Gold adult contemporary, urban country capitalist
-- You Bet Your Life (1991)
Neil Peart
No art can be judged by purely aesthetic standards, although a painting or a piece of music may appear to give a purely aesthetic pleasure. Aesthetic enjoyment is an intensification of the vital response, and this response forms the basis of all value judgements. The existentialist contends that all values are connected with the problems of human existence, the stature of man, the purpose of life. These values are inherent in all works of art, in addition to their aesthetic values, and are closely connected with them.
Colin Wilson
The first existentialist was not Sartre, though he coined the term. Nor was it Kierkegaard or Nietzsche, though most of the textbooks say so. Nor was it even Pascal, though he foreshadowed half of Kierkegaard and was the first to write about the fundamental existential experience of cosmic anxiety and meaninglessness. It was not even Saint Augustine, whose Confessions stands out as the profoundest example of depth psychology and existential autobiography ever written. It was not even Socrates, who alone among philosophers totally existed his philosophy.
Rather, the first existentialist was Solomon, or whoever wrote Ecclesiastes.
Peter Kreeft
What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world-and defines himself afterwards. If man as the existentialist see him is not definable, it is because to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself. Thus, there is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of himself. Man simply is.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Carnap made a detailed analysis of Heidegger's statement, "Nothing nihilates,” in order to show that it is purely verbal, devoid of empirical meaning. (Incidentally, this is the only sentence from existentialist philosophy the majority of contemporary positivists appear familiar with.)
Leszek Kołakowski
[on the fear of a nervous breakdown] I don't think I ever lost this fear. It turned me into a default existentialist by the time I was six: I quickly learned that the pursuit of happiness is largely pointless, happiness being the only target one merely has to aim at in order to miss.
John Cooper Clarke