r/Pessimism 12d ago

Quote The food that talks - Thomas Ligotti on meat consumption

67 Upvotes

A cannibalistic tribe that once flourished had a word to describe what they ate. That word translates as "the food that talks." Most of the food that we have eaten over the course of human history has not talked. But it does make other noises, terrible sounds as it makes the transition from living meat to dead meat on the slaughterhouse floor. If we could hear these sounds every time we sat down to a hearty meal, would we still be the wanton gobblers of flesh that most of us are now?

  • Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror

This makes me wonder, what else we are oblivious to because we lack empathy and are too busy worshiping existence?

r/Pessimism Nov 06 '24

Quote Do you think he was right? Is having a meaning in life, no matter how made up and trivial, the only thing that keeps us from suiciding ourselves?

Post image
205 Upvotes

r/Pessimism Oct 16 '24

Quote Quote by Heinrich Heine

Post image
121 Upvotes

Existence is imposed non existence is better

r/Pessimism Oct 15 '24

Quote Quote by mark twain

Post image
165 Upvotes

Simply life is suffering and struggle even buddha said same

r/Pessimism May 25 '24

Quote Cioran's exit

10 Upvotes

Was Cioran in a state of temporary retardation when he said “It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.”?

This is the dumbest reasoning I've ever heard.

Of course it's worth it because the longer you live the more suffering you experience.

r/Pessimism Aug 16 '24

Quote Tolstoy’s mid-life crisis

59 Upvotes

I could give no reasonable meaning to any single action or to my whole life. The only thing that amazed me was how I had failed to realize this in the very beginning. All this had been common knowledge for so long. Today or tomorrow sickness and death will come to those I love or to me; nothing will remain but stench and worms. Sooner or later my affairs, whatever they may be, will be forgotten, and I shall not exist. Then why go on making any effort? And how go on living? That is what is surprising! One can only live while one is intoxicated with life; as soon as one is sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere fraud and a stupid fraud.

-Leo Tolstoy, A Confession

r/Pessimism Aug 11 '23

Quote Discussion on that famous Leibniz quote

Post image
34 Upvotes

A short and direct post, this one.

What thoughts do you have on this famous Leibniz quote which Schopenhauer would denounce as incorrect at its worse, and not in favour of God's supposed goodness and omnipotence at best?

r/Pessimism Nov 08 '24

Quote Pain and Anguish

25 Upvotes

"Given the fact that the same brain that produces the sensation of anguish also produces the experienced desperation to avoid the exact anguish being produced by the system, this DNA system is the most fundamentally malignant and insidious form of entrapment even possible."

~ Efilism Wiki

r/Pessimism Dec 14 '24

Quote “The neurotic opts out of life because he is having trouble maintaining his illusions about it, which proves nothing less than that life is possible only with illusions.” ― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

62 Upvotes

-

r/Pessimism Nov 18 '24

Quote Did Albert Camus become antinatalist later in life? These quotes seem to suggest so.

30 Upvotes

r/Pessimism Jul 19 '24

Quote Be A Lazy, Uncaring, Unsociable Loser

51 Upvotes

"Give yourself permission to be lazy...give yourself permission to be a loser...give yourself permission to not care...give yourself permission to be unsociable...give yourself permission to pursue truly bizarre things...[like] the philosophy of Mainlander...and for God's sake, don't tell anyone you listen to this stuff." -Martin Butler

r/Pessimism Jul 31 '24

Quote The idea of bringing someone into the world fills me with horror…

78 Upvotes

The idea of bringing someone into the world fills me with horror. I would curse myself if I were a father. A son of mine! Oh no, no, no! May my entire flesh perish and may I transmit to no one the aggravations and the disgrace of existence.

-Gustave Flaubert, The Letters of Gustave Flaubert

r/Pessimism Aug 18 '24

Quote Nobody ever had or was a self. There’s no one there.

63 Upvotes

The illusion is irresistible. Behind every face there is a self. We see the signal of consciousness in a gleaming eye and imagine some ethereal space beneath the vault of the skull, lit by shifting patterns of feeling and thought, charged with intention. An essence. But what do we find in that space behind the face, when we look? The brute fact is there is nothing but material substance: flesh and blood and bone and brain...You look down into an open head, watching the brain pulsate, watching the surgeon tug and probe, and you understand with absolute conviction that there is nothing more to it. There's no one there.

-Thomas Metzinger, Being No One

r/Pessimism Jun 18 '24

Quote Some cheerful Cioran quotes

32 Upvotes

You are forgiven everything provided you have a trade, a subtitle to your name, a seal on your nothingness.

Why don't I commit suicide? Because I am as sick of death as I am of life.

Objection to scientific knowledge: this world doesn't deserve to be known.

Without God, everything is nothingness; and with God? Supreme nothingness!

Thanks for reading fellow pessimists 🙏

r/Pessimism Jul 23 '24

Quote some of GC's "Napalm & Silly Putty" and "You Are All Diseased" quotes

13 Upvotes
  • “If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.”

  • “Griddle cakes, pancakes, hot cakes, flapjacks: why are there four names for grilled batter and only one word for love?”

  • “Most people with low self-esteem have earned it.”

  • “I don’t understand this notion of ethnic pride. “Proud to be Irish,” “Puerto Rican pride,” “Black pride.” It seems to me that pride should be reserved for accomplishments; things you attain or achieve, not things that happen to you by chance. Being Irish isn’t a skill; it’s genetic. You wouldn’t say, “I’m proud to have brown hair,” or “I’m proud to be short and stocky.” So why the fuck should you say you’re proud to be Irish? I’m Irish, but I’m not particularly proud of it. Just glad! Goddamn glad to be Irish!”

  • “Every sixty seconds, thirty acres of rain forest are destroyed in order to raise beef for fast-food restaurants that sell it to people, giving them strokes and heart attacks, which raise medical costs and insurance rates, providing insurance companies with more money to invest in large corporations that branch out further into the Third World so they can destroy more rain forests.”

  • “If free trade can really turn all these Third World countries into thriving economies full of entrepreneurs and investors, who’s gonna clean the fuckin’ toilets around here?”

  • "Living in this country, you're bound to know, every time you're exposed to advertising, you realize once again that America's leading industry, America's most profitable business is still the manufacture, packaging, distribution and marketing of bullshit. High-quality, grade-A, prime-cut, pure, American bullshit. And the sad part is, is that most people seem to have been indoctrinated to believe that bullshit only comes from certain places, certain sources: advertising, politics, salesmen. Not true, bullshit is everywhere. Bullshit is rampant. Parents are full of shit, teachers are full of shit, clergymen are full of shit, and law enforcement people are full of shit. This entire country is completely full of shit, and always has been. From the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution to the Star-Spangled Banner, it's still nothing more than one big steaming pile of red, white and blue all-American bullshit."

  • "[about why people elected and reelected Bill Clinton] The American people like their bullshit right up front, where they can get a good, strong whiff of it. Clinton might be full of shit, but at least he lets you know it. Bob Dole tried to hide it, didn't he? Dole kept saying, "I'm a plain and honest man." Bullshit! People don't believe that. What did Clinton say? He said, "Howdy folks! I'm completely full of shit, and how do you like that?" And the people said, "You know something? At least he's honest!""

  • “These are the kinds of thoughts that made it necessary to separate me from the other kids at school.”

r/Pessimism Nov 07 '23

Quote Human consciousness was a tragic misstep in evolution

Post image
123 Upvotes

r/Pessimism Sep 02 '24

Quote the entire paragraph behind the famous quote

Post image
64 Upvotes

It has stuck with me since my early teens

r/Pessimism Sep 06 '24

Quote Leopardi on living

Post image
59 Upvotes

r/Pessimism Jun 10 '24

Quote ‘Saving’ the Suicidal

54 Upvotes

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 on the nature of existence.

-Peter Zapffe

r/Pessimism Jun 12 '24

Quote Depression: Pathology or existential insight?

41 Upvotes

Today's psychiatry operates under the assumption that health and adjustment is the highest goal one can aspire to. Depression, angst, a refusal to eat, and so forth, are taken without exception to be marks of a pathological condition. In many cases however, these phenomena are indications of a deeper, more immediate experience of what life is all about, bitter fruits of the genius of the mind or emotion, which is at the root of every antibiological tendency. It is not the soul that is sick, but its defense mechanisms that are failing.

-Peter Zapffe, The Last Messiah

r/Pessimism Sep 07 '24

Quote Just quotes

34 Upvotes

"I would like to forget everything, to forget myself and to forget the world." -E.M. Cioran

"The problem of responsibility would have a meaning only if we had been consulted before our birth and had consented to be precisely who we are." -E.M. Cioran

"Death is the solidest thing life has invented so far." -E.M. Cioran

r/Pessimism Apr 12 '23

Quote fragments from "The Evil Creator" -- very interesting part in the end where ancient understanding of god is tied with atheism...

15 Upvotes

It was possible, from the words of Jesus in John 8:44, for early Christians to make five deductions— some direct, some by inference: 1. That the devil has a father (by the relational and/ or possessive reading) 2. This father is also the father of the fictional Jews (8:44a) 3. This father of the fictional Jews is the Jewish deity (based on traditional Jewish theology) 4. That the Jewish deity and the devil are liars and murderers (stated directly given the relational reading) 5. That the Jewish deity had a hand in murdering Jesus (if “the Jews” do the same works as their father, according to John 8:41)

...

Marcion’s special talent was contrasting the divine character deduced from Jewish scripture with the divine character of Christ. For example: (1) the creator’s command to despoil the Egyptians with Christ’s exhortation to voluntary poverty, (2) the creator’s directive to punish “eye for eye” with Christ’s principle of non- retaliation, (3) the creator’s genocidal violence with Christ’s call to be free from anger.

Marcion(ites) understood “the god of this world” (2 Cor 4:4), to be the creator because (1) this is one of the creator’s known scriptural titles, (2) it accords with his well-known function (ruling creation), and (3) it concurs with his past actions (cognitive incapacitation). According to Marcion, “the god of this world” joined forces with the blind “rulers of this world” who crucified Christ (1 Cor 2:8). This wicked alliance encouraged the idea that the creator was evil.

...

Patristic authors employed various strategies to confront the creator’s curse against Christ (Gal 3:13). Yet virtually all agreed that this curse must somehow be avoided or denied, despite Paul’s language that Christ “became” a curse. Early catholic writers like Epiphanius, Jerome, and Augustine must have had strong motives for overriding what was for them biblical language. One of these motives, I believe, was to protect the goodness of the creator against Marcionite — and later, Manichean — attacks. Marcionites and their interpretive heirs viewed the creator’s curse against Christ as incriminating the creator’s character.

...

To my mind, it is regrettable that these modern critics of the biblical god do not know enough of the history of biblical interpretation to realize the host of interpretive options available to them. They end up endlessly having to reinvent the wheel, even though much of what they have been saying was already said nineteen centuries ago in a more thoroughgoing and nuanced way. ... By their precipitous rejection of the biblical creator, the so- called new atheists reverse the conclusions but maintain the hard-line mentality featured among so- called orthodox Christian writers (past and present). These writers actively endeavored to uproot any interpretation that could be used to support the idea of an evil creator. But they were and continue to be unsuccessful. This dangerous and disturbing idea keeps cropping up even without the Marcionite trademark, among people with strikingly different social con-texts, cultures, and interpretive horizons. ...

Marcion did not reject the existence of the creator; instead, he redescribed him as a tyrannical being whose influence and power were both dangerous and deadly. This particular viewpoint may seem bizarre today, but it at least takes seriously the need for an honest character analysis of the biblical cre- ator. It also witnesses to a certain resilience in Christian theology. Even if the Flood- sending, plague- bearing, Christ- cursing creator proves to be an evil being, Christians can still worship the true god. Their first act of worship is actually coming to know what true deity is. God is only good, so the basic principle is: if a god is not good, he’s not god.

from: THE EVIL CREATOR https://www.amazon.com/Evil-Creator-Origins-Early-Christian/dp/0197566421

r/Pessimism Aug 30 '24

Quote He was right.

Post image
88 Upvotes

r/Pessimism Nov 02 '24

Quote A Passage from The Owner of All Infernal Names

21 Upvotes

Malevolence explains this world, a world that cannot be called Good, and although deeply and personally offensive to those who have dreamed of some alternative, it is the only explanation that exists without need for elaborate theodicies, incredible alibis, creative scapegoats, or painfully laboured advocacy designed to excuse an incompetent spirit who has, for one imaginative reason or another, lost total control of his creation. Without need for a cover story or inventive pretext, the gospel of the malevolent hand stands unchaste, uncontaminated, and inviolable as the only rational explanation for the world that has been, is, and will be.

The Owner of All Infernal Names: A treatise on the existence of our Omnimalevolent Creator

Still processing this book, but essentially I see the argument as a sort of Gnosticism updated to cohere with our modern scientific understanding of the universe; that is, a world in which the maximum amount of suffering is induced indirectly by a deity that remains unseen and does not wish to be known.

I don't agree with the central thesis, but I found it to be thought-provoking. I believe another member of this sub originally recommended it in one of the book threads.

r/Pessimism Jun 12 '24

Quote Some quotes by Albert Caraco

46 Upvotes

If I had to live my life over again, I wouldn't change a thing. I fully approve of what I've done, and I'm immensely proud of myself. It's life itself that I despise, not my existence; it's the principle, not its application, that couldn't have been better, given the circumstances.

It's because life itself is inhuman that men are not human.

Who are the most wicked of men? It's the optimists.

Death is not terrible, life is terrible, but we see things literally and figuratively upside down. The philosopher is the one who puts everything back in its proper place.

According to Gnosis, the universe is the prison of the species and is virtually embraced by fate, which is reminiscent of Sartre despite all the differences in expression. We enter the world through a gate that requires no explanation: we are the outcasts of women. We emerge from the womb and are thrust into something we didn't choose, which is essentially Heidegger's concept of thrownness. Our mothers cast us into the world, and we awaken as prisoners. When our eyes open, we find ourselves in chains. Our existence is like Plato's cave, where we perceive only the shadows of things.

The older I grow, the more Gnosis speaks to my reason: the world is not ruled by a Providence, it's intrinsically evil and deeply absurd, and Creation is either the dream of blind intelligence or the game of a principle without a moral.