Philosophical Musings Quotes

“Sometimes truths are what we run from, and sometimes they are what we seek.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Elephant Tree

“Scott glanced at his watch but didn't register what it said. The notion of time had become as absurd as the quietly glowing trees.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Elephant Tree

“Deciding to wait, Scott sat down with a pint away from the bar at a corner table and lit a cigarette. The clientele in there on Sunday afternoon were the same as most other afternoons. From middle-aged to old men, drinking and cursing at the world like it was the last bus which had just left the stop without them.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Elephant Tree

“He had an intrusive gaze and quietly confident manner, that seemed to strip away the layers of protective deception Scott would usually adopt around strangers.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Elephant Tree

“Solitude led to retrospective thinking, and if the past is what you are trying to get away from, then constant distractions in the present are needed.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Elephant Tree

“If your world is out there and you are in here then the only things that will gather within these walls are time and bitterness. Eventually, that bitterness will eat away at you and leave nothing behind but resentment and hate.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Zombie Room

“Oh, gentlemen, perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I've never been able to start or finish anything. Granted, granted I'm a babbler, a harmless, irksome babbler, as we all are. But what's to be done if the sole and express purpose of every intelligent man is babble--that is, a deliberate pouring from empty into void.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead

“To increase desires to an unbearable level whilst making the fulfillment of them more and more inaccessible: this was the single principle upon which Western society was based.”
― Michel Houellebecq, The Possibility of an Island

“You know, there is a thin line between hope and confidence. What separates the two is rationality.”
― Abhaidev, The Influencer: Speed Must Have a Limit

“Some are mature enough that they don’t speak their minds. Some are so mature that they know they are not mature.”
― Abhaidev, That Thing About You

“There is much that is strange, but nothing that surpasses man in strangeness”
― Sophocles

“...my boredom might be described as a malady affecting external objects and consisting of a withering process; an almost instantaneous loss of vitality--just as though one saw a flower change in a few seconds from a bud to decay and dust.”
― Alberto Moravia

“They are all very serious people with stern expressions on their faces. They discuss nothing but important matters and like to philosophize a great deal, while at the same time everyone can see that the workers are detestably fed, sleep without suitable bedding, thirty to forty in a room with bedbugs everywhere, the stench, the dampness, and the moral corruption... Obviously all our fine talk has gone on simply to hoodwink ourselves and other people as well. Show me the day nurseries that they're talking about so much about. And where are the libraries? Why, they just write about nurseries and libraries in novels, while in fact not a single one even exists. What does exist is nothing but dirt, vulgarity, and a barbarian way of life... I dislike these terribly serious faces, they frighten me, and I'm afraid of serious conversations, too. We'd be better off if we all would just shut up for a while!”
― Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard

“Let me tell you a secret about the human condition. Nihilism leads to spirituality. And spirituality leads to nihilism. It is never in between for long. It is always a see-saw in action. Yes, my dear child, one can’t remain mystical all the time, for hopelessness creeps into even the most positive of minds. But this hopelessness, this cynicism too is not permanent. Man, you see, swings between nihilism and spirituality. Man, you see, swings between utmost bliss and the feelings of utter despair. It’s a rollercoaster, our lives. One can’t just go higher, higher all the time.”
― Abhaidev, The Influencer: Speed Must Have a Limit

“Expressing doubt is how we begin a journey to discover essential truths.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“People are no damn good.”
― William Steig, The Lonely Ones

“Why does it seem easier for us to accept reality when it is within the confinement of the animal kingdom yet so hard for us to face it in our?”
― Aysha Taryam, The Opposite of Indifference: A Collection of Commentaries

“No thought,no reflection,no analysis,no cultivation,no intention;let it settle itself.Relax "Tilopa”
― Tilopa, Instructions in Mahamudra - a translation of the Ganga Mahamudra Upadesha of Tilopa

“Like billiard balls colliding our courses were altered.”
― Linda Collison, Star-Crossed

“Knowing the true isolation of being marks the beginning of love for others.”
― Jack Sanger, Azimuth: The Second Journey

“Things are as they are, and no amount of self-deception makes them otherwise. The friend who is incapable of depression depresses us as surely as the friend who is incapable of boredom bores us. Somewhere in our hearts is a strong, though dimly understood, desire to face realities, and to measure consequences, to have done with the fatigue of pretending. It is not optimism to enjoy the view when one is treed by a bull; it is philosophy. The optimist would say that being treed was a valuable experience. The disciple of gladness would say it was a pleasurable sensation. The Christian Scientist would say there was no bull, though remaining–if he were wise–on the tree-top. The philosopher would make the best of a bad job, and seek what compensation he could find.”
― Agnes Repplier, Points of Friction

“Leftie loosely is the way
to relax a set old screw
as rightie tightly thinks
new bullshit to pursue”
― Cornelia "Connie D" DeDona

“What are we but infinitesimal grains of infinite desires?”
― Maria-Cristina Necula

“Have you seen a man's fangs? Try playfully biting his favorite ism. And not only will he show his teeth, but also his thirty two fangs.”
― Fakeer Ishavardas

“Who enjoys his own company, though alone, is never lonely.”
― Fakeer Ishavardas

“Hunt. Gather. Kill. Endure. Habits, in time, birth order. Order forms structure.”
― Nicholas Nikita, Logos

“What are we but an infinitesimal grain of infinite desire?”
― Maria-Cristina Necula

“I'm finding it difficult to keep my head above water in this chaos! I sense that I have moved beyond this reality. Oh yes! In the tumultuous journey of presence, we discover ourselves simultaneously lost and found, wandering through the shadows of our self-imposed turmoil and hell.”
― Jonathan Harnisch

“A supernova dies, and in its death, new stars begin. Endings aren’t endings.”
― Monika Ajay Kaul

“The heart stumbles on two thresholds: the door forever closed, and the one flung open too wide.”
― Monika Ajay Kaul