Quotes about Existentialism

Unlike landed white men, she didn't need to climb mountains to experience mystic panic. All she needed was to set her alarm dock for the next morning, wake when it rang, and go to class.

The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unhappy but hardly fit for life.

It may be true that my desk here is really "nothing but" a transient eddy of electrons in the flux of universal process. Nevertheless, I find that it continues to support my feet, my revolver, and my cigars all day long. What happens when my back is turned I don't know. Or much care. That's no concern of mine.

Beware the writer who always encloses the word "reality" in quotation marks: He's trying to slip something over on you. Or into you.

We meandered through Billy’s ritzy neighborhood in the general direction of Jefferson Street. In the lamplight the houses looked identical, grand façade after grand façade of pale gray with black windows, as if for all their monumentality they were nothing but wallpaper, black-and-white prints, two-dimensional murals similar in their deceptive insubstantiality to the gossamer buildings of New Age City. I was struck by the idea that Billy and I, to the extent we existed only in our imaginations, were just as shallow, just as superficial—and equally susceptible to being erased without a trace.

Ever since learning I wasn’t the only unreal person in the world, I’d developed an annoying habit of studying people to determine their true ontological status. I studied people in class, the library, the cafeteria, my dorm, around campus, while running the Gargoyle Castle Loop. Now, under the influence of acid, I began to suspect everyone was unreal. That behind all the masks and makeup, the smiles and laughter, the quips and repartees, there was a good chance of finding absolutely nothing.

I felt exceedingly small, but also exceedingly large, and the things that had once seemed so important now appeared trifling. Actually, those things had never even existed. I’d imagined every last one of them. Nothing ever really existed. Somehow, just then, navigating that cosmic ocean of sky, this was everything I needed to know.

As you learn to leave alone the activity of unconsciously trying to be the mindbody that you think that you are - the mindbody that this "you" is currently flowing through - and you learn to move as this one that you truly are - this "you" of you; the very heart of existence - steadily, consciously and momentarily, the continuity of the ever deepening of this innermost as it keeps on entering its manifestation, through this mindbody that you find yourself flowing through, allows you to simply bubble in the sheer joy, pleasure, peace, delightfulness and stillness that this "you" of you is.

Go placidly amid the noise and waste, and remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof. Avoid quiet and placid people, unless you are in need of sleep. Rotate your tires.  Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself, and heed well their advice, even though they be turkeys. Know what to kiss, and when. Consider that two wrongs never make a right, but that three do. Whenever possible, put people on hold. Be comforted that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment, and and despite the changing fortunes of time, there is always a big future in computer mainteinance.

Remember the Pueblo. Strive at all times to bend, fold, spindle and mutilate. Know yourself; if you need help, call the FBI. Exercise caution in your daily affairs, especially with those persons closest to you—that lemon on your left, for instance. Be assured that a walk throught the ocean of most souls would scarecely get your feet wet. Fall not in love therefore; it will stick to your face. Gracefully surrender the things of youth—birds, clean air, tuna, Taiwan—and let not the sands of time get in your lunch. Hire people with hooks. For a good time, call 606-4311... ask for Candy. Take heart amid the deepening gloom that your dog is finally getting enough cheese; and reflect that whatever misfortune may be your lot, it could only be worse in Milwaukee.

You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here, and whether you can hear it or not, the Universe is laughing behind your back. Therefore, make peace with your God, whatever you may percieve Him to be: hairy thunderer, or cosmic muffin. With all its hopes, dreams, promises and urban renewal, the world continues to deteriorate.

Give up.

The consolations are gone; the skull will grin in at the banquet; it can no longer tranquilize itself with the trivial. From the depths, it cries out to gods no longer there, searches for a meaning not yet disclosed, still to be incarnated. Its very agony is worth a million happy magics and a thousand believing myths, and yet its only consolation is its unrelenting pain - a pain, a dread, an emptiness that feels beyond the comforts and distractions of the body, the persona, the ego, looks bravely into the face of the Void, and can no longer explain away either the Mystery or the Terror. It is a soul that is much too awake. It is a soul on the brink of the transpersonal.

Jesus died on the cross so I could become an existentialist.

Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve.

"If you're afraid to Live, you're afraid to Die"