304 Quotes About Nihilism

Though nihilism has been relentlessly criticized for overemphasizing the dark side of human experience, it might be equally true that this overemphasis represents a needed counterbalance to shallow optimism and arrogant confidence in human power. Nihilism reminds us that we are not gods, and that despite all of the accomplishments and wonders of civilization, humans cannot alter the fact that they possess only a finite amount of mastery and control over their own destinies.

There is an emptiness in life that cannot be described, about which one cannot speak. We must pass over it in silence

I want to end my life like a human being: in Intensive Care, high on morphine, surrounded by cripplingly expensive doctors and brutal, relentless life-support machines. Then the corpse can go into orbit—preferably around the sun. I don't care how much it costs, just so long as I don't end up party of any fucking natural cycle: carbon, phosphorus, nitrogen. Gaia, I divorce thee. Go suck the nutrients out of someone else, you grasping bitch.

Our planet is a freak which we shall destroy by our own wicked senseless activities in the next century. Our history will very soon come to an end. Now that God is dead, we are at last presented with the truth, yes, the truth remains, but it is on a short lead. Anyway, we are nothing and it matters not what we do.

I rejoice that I could once think better of the world's improvability than it deserved. It is a mistake into which men seldom fall twice, in a lifetime; or, if so, the rarer and higher is the nature that can magnanimously persist in error.

In account after account of exorcisms the demonic voices will propound nihilism of one variety or another.

So, I found my refuge in art. I could find no truth in art, but I was obsessed with the beauty of its lies. The world was full of shit in all the wrong ways, but in art I could find whatever line of bullshit most satisfied me. And unlike religion, it didn’t require the gullibility to actually fall for it, only the ability to entertain it, and to be entertained by it.

It’s time for the human race to escape the nihilism of scientism. It's time for meaning, purpose, life, mind and qualia to be restored to their rightful, primary, defining place. Amazingly, it’s mathematics that allows the universe to be a living organism once again rather than a dead machine.

Forgiveness is giving up on the treacle of what has failed and moving towards that which is more ideal. It takes us from a negative logic of detesting something, to a space of emptiness, from which we can reconnect with creative logic and instead of acting out our fears of the negative, reach toward what may be beautiful.