SHAWORDS

Our situation is not so different from that of a donkey with a carrot — Philosophical pessimism

Home›Philosophical pessimism›Quote
"Our situation is not so different from that of a donkey with a carrot hanging in front of it. Our carrot is called happiness. When pursuing it, we chase after something we will never obtain. We have the impression that we are born to be happy, but this is only because we are tied to the internal logic of our biological nature. The condition of being alive imposes pleasure and suffering as the supreme points of reference. However, pleasure is only a psychological mechanism designed to influence our behavior, not a reality to which we are heading. This will become clear if we consider the fact that, when we reach the satisfaction of some desire, we have only a few moments of pleasure as a reward and, afterwards, new needs begin to torment us and make us restless. It will not be long before we take action again, in a cycle of dissatisfaction that will only end with the death of the individual or with the acquisition of a grain of good sense."
P
Philosophical pessimism
P
Philosophical pessimism
Philosophical pessimism
author247 quotes

Philosophical pessimism is the view that life and existence are of negative value. It is often expressed as the claim that life is not worth living and that non-existence would, at least in many cases, be preferable to coming into or remaining in existence. Other formulations focus on claims that suffering and other harms have more impact or severity than pleasure and other goods; that the amount

More by Philosophical pessimism

View all →
Quote
"Depression, angst, a refusal to eat, and so forth, are taken without exception to be marks of a pathological condition, and are treated accordingly. 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 ill, but its defense mechanism that either fails or is abjured because it is considered—correctly—as a betrayal of mans most potent gift."
P
Philosophical pessimism
Quote
"Ah, now I understand! Senhor Vasques is Life; Life, monotonous and necessary, commanding and unknowable. This banal man represents the banality of life. On the surface he is everything to me, just as, on the surface, Life is everything to me. And if the office in the Rua dos Douradores represents Life for me, the fourth-floor room I live in on that same street represents Art. Yes, Art, living on the same street as Life but in a different room; Art, which offers relief from life without actually relieving one of living, and which is as monotonous as life itself, but in a different way. Yes, for me Rua dos Douradores embraces the meaning of all things, the resolution of all mysteries, except the existence of mysteries themselves, which is something beyond resolution."
P
Philosophical pessimism