#existent

What is the ideal for mental health, then? A lived, compelling illusion that does not lie about life, death, and reality; one honest enough to follow its own commandments: I mean, not to kill, not to take the lives of others to justify itself. ↗

— Ernest Becker

#mental-health #death

Obviously, all religions fall far short of their own ideals. ↗

— Ernest Becker

#religion #death

In life man commits himself and draws his own portrait, outside of which there is nothing. No doubt this thought may seem harsh to someone who has not made a success of his life. But on the other hand, it helps people to understand that reality alone counts, and that dreams, expectations and hopes only serve to define a man as a broken dream, aborted hopes, and futile expectations. ↗

— Jean-Paul Sartre

#philosophy #dreams

Camus and Henry waved to me from that muddy truck. They both wanted me to get over myself. So, this was me, getting over myself. And it was about time. ↗

— Laura Anderson Kurk

#dating #existentialism #glass-girl #henry-whitmire #humanitarian

Polarities of the 'authentic' vs. the 'inauthentic' are easily discernible in recreational modes. The criteria of authenticity are not necessarily objective but rather have to do with the rules by which the self allows or disallows its own experience. ↗

— Walker Percy

#existentialism #experience #genuineness #the-self #experience

Our greatest challenge today...is to couple conviction with doubt. By conviction, I mean some pragmatically developed faith, trust, or centeredness; and by doubt I mean openness to the ongoing changeability, mystery, and fallibility of the conviction. ↗

— Kirk J. Schneider

#faith #faith

Can it be, I thought, can it actually be? .......could he be all of them: Rine the runner and Rine the gambler and Rine the briber and Rine the lover and Rinehart the Reverend? Could he himself be both rind and heart? .....Rinehart the rounder. It was true as I was true. His world was possibility and he knew it. He was years ahead of me and I was a fool. I must have been crazy and blind. The world in which we lived was without boundaries...All boundaries down, freedom was not only the recognition of necessity, it was the recognition of possibility. And sitting there trembling I caught a brief glimpse of the possibilities posed by Rinehart’s multiple personalities… ↗

— Ralph Ellison

#freedom

They are so very cultivated, so very rich and so utterly charming. At the end of each day, they all ask themselves: 'Is it time I stopped?' And they all reply: 'If I did, there would be no meaning to my life.' As if they actually knew what the meaning of life was. ↗

— Paulo Coelho

#life #meaning #life

I have crossed the seas, I have left cities behind me, and I have followed the source of rivers towards their source or plunged into forests, always making for other cities. I have had women, I have fought with men ; and I could never turn back any more than a record can spin in reverse. And all that was leading me where ? To this very moment... ↗

— Jean-Paul Sartre

#existentialist #nausea #men

One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil. ↗

— Friedrich Nietzsche

#student #teacher #teacher