{"quotes":[{"text":"You’re better looking than me. You’re more intelligent than me. Your personality is more likable than mine. You make more money than me. Your family is nicer than mine. Your religion is better than mine. You’ve seen more beaches than me. You’ve been to more cities than me. Your automobile is nicer than mine. Your significant other is better looking than mine. Your candidate won. Your home team won. You’re number one. But life is a tie. We all die.","author":"Jason Daniel Chaplin","tags":["absurdism","existentialism","philosophy","romance","surrealism"],"id":24567,"author_id":"Jason+Daniel+Chaplin"},{"text":"Existence is illusory and it is eternal.","author":"Albert Camus","tags":["absurdism","existentialism"],"id":26746,"author_id":"Albert+Camus"},{"text":"If nothing had any meaning, you would be right. But there is something that still has a meaning.","author":"Albert Camus","tags":["absurdism","existentialism","meaning-of-life","nihilism","the-absurd"],"id":41380,"author_id":"Albert+Camus"},{"text":"Sure, people can make you happy, but no one can stop you from being happy.","author":"Jason Daniel Chaplin","tags":["absurdism","existentialism","happiness","jason-daniel-chaplin","philosophy","surrealism"],"id":41401,"author_id":"Jason+Daniel+Chaplin"},{"text":"Of whom and of what can I say: 'I know that'! This heart within me I can feel, and I judge that it exists. This world I can touch, and I likewise judge that it exists. There ends all my knowledge, and the rest is construction. For if I try to seize this self of which I feel sure, if I try to define and to summarize it, it is nothing but water slipping through my fingers. I can sketch one by one all the aspects it is able to assume, all those likewise that have been attributed to it, this upbringing, this origin, this ardor or these silences, this nobility or this vileness. But aspects cannot be added up. This very heart which is mine will forever remain indefinable to me. Between the certainty I have of my existence and the content I try to give to that assurance the gap will never be filled.","author":"Albert Camus","tags":["absurdism","existence","knowledge"],"id":46248,"author_id":"Albert+Camus"},{"text":"But if one doesn't really exist, one wonders why...' she hesitated.'Why one makes such a fuss about things,' Anthony suggested. 'All that howling and hurrahing and gnashing of teeth. About the adventures of a self that isn't really a self—just the result of a lot of accidents. And of course,' he went on, 'once you start wondering, you see at once that there is no reason for making such a fuss. And then you don't make a fuss—that is, if you're sensible. Like me,' he added, smiling.","author":"Aldous Huxley","tags":["absurdism","absurdity","aldous","aldous-huxley","brave-new-world","existentialism","eyeless-in-gaza","huxley","nihilism"],"id":55757,"author_id":"Aldous+Huxley"},{"text":"Fighting for freedom” is a myth. There’s only freedom in uniting. You’re not really free with an, “Us vs Them” mentality; because you are constantly defending yourself. And in fighting, there’s no time for freedom.","author":"Jason Daniel Chaplin","tags":["absurdism","existentialism","freedom","jason-daniel-chaplin","politics","surrealism"],"id":67614,"author_id":"Jason+Daniel+Chaplin"},{"text":"I am unable to believe in a God susceptible to prayer. I simply haven't the nerve to imagine a being, a force, a cause which keeps the planets revolving in their orbits, and then suddenly stops in order to give me a bicycle with three speeds.","author":"Quentin Crisp","tags":["absurdism","atheism","humour","inspirational","prayer"],"id":74523,"author_id":"Quentin+Crisp"},{"text":"Here in Alpha City, we have a common saying: “What we call ‘sky’ is merely a figment of our narrative.” The most dreamy-eyed among us seem to adorn themselves and their aspirations in that proverb and you’ll see it everywhere: in advertisements on the sides of streetcars and auto-rickshaws, spelled out in studs and rhinestones on designer jackets, emblazoned in the intricate designs of facial tattoos—even painted on city walls by putrid vandals and inspiring street artists. There is something glorious about kneading out into the doughy firmament the depth and breadth of one’s own universe, in rendering the contours of a sky whose limits are predicated only upon the bounds of one’s own imagination. The fact of the matter is that we cannot see the natural sky at all here. It is something like a theoretical mathematical expression: like the square-root of ‘negative one’—certainly it could be said to have a purpose for existing, but to cast eyes upon it, in its natural quantity, would be something akin to casting one’s eyes upon the raw elements comprising our everyday sustenance. How many of us have even borne close witness to the minute chemical compounds that react to lend battery power to our portable electronics? The sky is indeed such a concealed fixture now. It is fair to say that we have purged our memories of its true face and so we can only approximate a canvas and project our desires upon it to our heart’s dearest fancy. The most cynical among us would ostensibly declare it an unavoidable tragedy, but perhaps even these hardened individuals could not remember the naked sky well enough to know if what they were missing was something worthwhile. Perhaps, it’s cynical of me to say so! In any case, we have our searchlights pointed upwards and crisscrossing that expanse of heavens as though to make some sensational and profane joke of ourselves to the surrounding universe. We beam already video images of beauty pageants and dancing contests with smiling mannequins who look like buffoons. And so, the face of space cloaks itself behind our light pollution—in this respect, our mirrored sidewalks and lustrous streets do little to help our cause—and that face remains hidden from us in its jeering ridicule, its mocking laughter at this inexorable farce of human existence.","author":"Ashim Shanker","tags":["absurdism","imagination","narrative","projection","self-importance","sky","solipsism","technological-progress"],"id":80900,"author_id":"Ashim+Shanker"},{"text":"Don't you think our society is designed to kill in that way? Of course, you've surely heard about those tiny fish in the rivers of Brazil which attack the swimmer by the thousands, eat him up in a few moments in quick little mouthfuls and leave only a perfectly clean skeleton behind? So, that's the way they're constituted. 'Do you want a clean life, like everyone else?' Of course the answer is yes. How could you not? 'Fine. We'll clean you up. Here's a job, here's a family, here's some organized leisure.' And the little teeth bite into the flesh, right down to the bone. But I'm being unfair. I shouldn't have said, 'the way they're constituted', because after all, it's our way, too: it's a case of who strips whom.","author":"Albert Camus","tags":["absurdism","african","african-","algerian","existentialism","literature"],"id":129941,"author_id":"Albert+Camus"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":31,"pages":4,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}