52 Quotes by Peter Wessel Zapffe

A coin is examined, and only after careful deliberation, given to a beggar, whereas a child is flung out into the cosmic brutality without hesitation.

Dokker træng en hest," sa de. "Ja vil dokker bryte dokker så grynsmå," sa han, "så har æ no mærra her. Ka dokker betale? Vil dokker op og slå dokker tell individ, så skal æ kjøre dokker både op og ner. Hos mæg skal dokker ikje omkomme, dokker skal ikje førlise et hår. Ka dokker betale? Her e ingen så lægg to pinna i kors førr dokker, neida, bare hjølpsomme folk overalt.

Aftenen endte med idyll. Håkon kaldte mig genial, og jeg svarte at han var en stor menneskekjender.

Og når så denne fare for et godt ord, ja endog i fulstændig taushet, har utladet sig i et normalt avviklet fald av frontaltypen, vil posen, som misforstår situationen og i de blinde kausalprocesser mener å gjenkjende bærerens lyst på renmose, hjælpe ansiktet dypere ned i sneen end hensikten var, og holde det stille der mens eieren venter på vårløsningen.

Man is a tragic animal. Not because of his smallness, but because he is too well endowed. Man has longings and spiritual demands that reality cannot fulfill. We have expectations of a just and moral world. Man requires meaning in a meaningless world.

As long as humankind recklessly proceeds in the fateful delusion of being biologically fated for triumph, nothing essential will change.

A coin is turned around before it is handed to the beggar, yet a child is unflinchingly tossed into cosmic bruteness.

In accordance with my conception of life, I have chosen not to bring children into the world. A coin is examined, and only after careful deliberation, given to a beggar, whereas a child is flung out into the cosmic brutality without hesitation.

When a human being takes his life in depression, this is a natural death of spiritual causes. The modern barbarity of ‘saving’ the suicidal is based on a hair-raising misapprehension of the nature of existence.