Nihilism Quotes

Nihilism is but the other side of conventionalism; its creed consists of negations of the current so-called positive values, to which it remains bound.

The negative always wins at last, but I like it none the better for that.

[R]eligious concepts are parasitic upon moral intuitions.

You don't realize all the things you have in this world, much more than you need, and you do much less than you can.

Nihilism: any aim is lacking, any answer to the question "why" is lacking. What does nihilism mean?--that the supreme values devaluate themselves.

Regimes collapse when people are no longer afraid and think they're no longer alone.

Belief and seeing are both often wrong.

The laws of history tell us that only when the old is gone can the new take its place.

I think you can get to a point where nihilism, if that's the right word, is overwhelming, and the basic laws that society has set up - either religious or social laws - become meaningless.

Most of us will still take nihilism over neanderthalism.

The contemporary rejection of natural right leads to nihilism - nay, it is identical with nihilism.

There's not a drug on earth can make life meaningful

I'm thinking maybe letting the latches burn is the right idea. Let everything burn until there's nothing left but ashes and cool rain.

If you want to scare people, you talk about evil.

Maybe those nihilist philosophers are right; maybe this is all we can expect of the universe, a relentless crushing of life and spirit, because the equilibrium state of the cosmos is death.

Thus it amounts to the same thing whether one gets drunk alone or is a leader of nations.

I don't see any point in nihilism... just as I suppose the nihilist sees no point in everything else.

Suicide attacks are the actions of losers who have nothing left to lose. In this case, Islam serves as a mask, a cover for desperation and nihilism, but not for religion.

If nothing had any meaning, you would be right. But there is something that still has a meaning.

There must be somebody there, because somebody must have said "Nobody.

The weird nihilism that permeates Mellon Collie is extremely relevant to what's going on right now. So many kids are intelligent and articulate, but they don't know what to do with themselves.

Nihilism, there's really nothing to it.

The struggle against subjectivism was the attempt to avoid the charge of what was then called "idealism" or "nihilism", i.e., that we know nothing more than our own representations.

Are there any good arguments in defence of moral nihilism? I think not.

It is of note that for a long time moral nihilism was a kind of unquestioned default position in analytic moral philosophy.

The philosophy that prepares a revolution and the sentiment that underpins the philosophy have, in every case the two pillars of nihilism and mysticism.

Meaning is malleable: take it out, you get nihilism and despair. Put it in, you get sacredness and something most special.

I believe that we are all, openly or secretly, struggling against one or another kind of nihilism.

The secularists have not wrecked divine things; but the secularists have wrecked secular things, if that is any comfort to them. The Titans did not scale heaven; but they laid waste the world.

The Universe will now be set right. Made over to fit my unique view of what should be. Let Nihilism reign supreme!

My grandfather was a practising Quaker. My father was a nihilist. But nihilism, if you like, is the beginning of faith anyway.

She soon learned, though, that giving weight to other people's opinions was creative nihilism; it was like being banished from the Land of No Words and exiled to the Land of All Bullshit.

I do not teach students anything. I learn along with them.

The atheism and nihilism of my earlier years now seems shallow, and even a bit cocky.

Traditional history appears to be the defacto recognition of every evil deed that failed to be stopped or eliminated.

The great German idealists from Kant to Hegel saw this idealism or nihilism as a reductio ad absurdum of any philosophy, and so they struggled by all conceptual means to avoid it.

That is why I have called feminism nihilism. It says that being a woman is nothing definite and that the duty of women is to advance that nothingness as a cause.

I think all true stories are hopeful stories. I don't think there's any room for nihilism.

Cynicism was a school in Greece - the Cynics. Diogenes is a famous Cynic. There was a strong belief in nihilism and narcissism. Those are old schools too.

Your drive to produce hard-edged opinions stoked by hostility is likely a sign that you've been brainwashed by the pedestrian influences of pop nihilism.

We should not accept moral nihilism unless we find strong arguments to do so.

Moral nihilism comes with a price we can now see.

I can't go on, I'll go on.

It is intoxicating joy for the sufferer to look away from his suffering and to forget himself.

Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance.

...freedom only gives you something to be sorry for.

Maybe I should have gone into politics. If you were a political activist, election season brought moments of intensity, whichever side you were on, and meanwhile here I was inarguably withering away,

Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle

Belief is a wonderful way to pass the time until the facts come in.

If I were to share Jaques' existence I would find it hard to hold my own against him, for already I found his nihilism contagious.