143 Quotes About Futility

Without the hope of posterity, for our race if not for ourselves, without the assurance that we being dead yet live, all pleasures of the mind and senses sometimes seem to me no more than pathetic and crumbling defences shored up against our ruin.

A Chinese proverb: Outside of sky there is sky, outside of people there are people. It is the idea of infinity and also that there will always be someone better than you.

Does anything we do ever end it?

The same feeling of not belonging, of futility, wherever I go: I pretend interest in what matters nothing to me, I bestir myself mechanically or out of charity, without ever being caught up, without ever being somewhere. What attracts me is elsewhere, and I don’t know where that elsewhere is.

[…] as if the next thing must quickly come along to occupy her, or the abyss might open. What abyss? The abyss that waits for all of us, when all our actions seem futile, when the ability to fill the day seems stalled, and the waiting takes on an edge of dread.

The same feeling of not belonging, of futility, wherever I go: I pretend interest in what matters nothing to me, I bestir myself mechanically or out of charity, without ever being caught up, without ever being somewhere. What attracts me is somewhere else, and I don’t know what that elsewhere is.

Uite, daca-mi strang sufletul, nu se prinde nimic in el. Oricum, am ajuns departe, foarte departe. O mai fi ceva? Arborii cresc, le dau mugurii, le pica frunzele si se intreaba: o mai fi ceva? Oamenii iubesc, stau de vorba si mor. O mai fi ceva? Mortii tac. Scruteaza vesnicia si tac. Lasa iarba sa-i faca optimisti pana in toamna. Atunci mor din nou peste moartea lor veche, gramada. Si tac, si tac, si tac.

Człowiek jest zły i cała jego działalność polega na robieniu niepotrzebnych rzeczy i gromadzeniu niepotrzebnej wiedzy.

I keep a list as close as my phone, and draw a deep sense of satisfaction each time I strike a task from it. In such erasure lies joy. No matter how much I give of myself to household chores, each of the rooms under my control swiftly unravels itself again in my aftermath, as though a shadow hand were already beginning the unwritten lists of my tomorrows…