Existential Angst Quotes

“Emotional exhaustion follows fast on the footsteps of physical and mental depletion. I feel my lifeblood draining away in an oily spigot of inner turmoil. Questions abound and personal survival hinges upon sorting through possible solutions and selecting the most fitting answers. Is my pain real or simply an illusion of a frustrated ego? What do I believe in? What is my purpose? I aspire to discover a means to live in congruence with the trinity of the mind, body, and spirit. Can I discover a noble path that frees me from the shallowness of decadent physical and emotional desires? Can I surrender any desire to seek fame and fortune? Can I terminate a craving to punish other persons for their perceived wrongs? Can I recognize that forgiving persons whom offended me is a self-initiated, transformative act? Can I conquer an irrational fear of the future? Can I accept the inevitable chaos that accompanies life? Can I find a means to achieve inner harmony by steadfastly resolving to live in the moment free of angst? Can I purge egotisms that mar an equitable perception of life by renunciation of the self and all worldly endeavors? Can I live a harmonious existence devoid the panache of vanities?”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“A desire to attain short-term happiness while laboring under the weight a looming death sentence is an obvious paradox. Suicide, as distinguished from medical euthanasia, is an emotional reaction to the absurdity of life. Suicide is a panic-stricken reflex induced by the sinister twins of fear and foreboding. A rational person does not commit self-murder because their longing for happiness is incongruent with their present day reality. Suicide is a superficial response to hard times; suicide is a pusillanimous solution. A more measured reaction and, therefore, ultimately a braver and logical tactic is to meet life’s pillbox of irrationality headfirst. Upon soul-searching reflection, a thinking person accepts that while he or she might never comprehend a unifying meaning of life they still prefer to experience each permitted day of life to the fullest. A pragmatic person accepts the cold fact that happiness is fleeting and death is inevitable. By acknowledging and accepting the underlying absurdity of life, the prisoner awakens to discover his own humanity. By refusing to cooperate with death, by working each day to expand personal consciousness, by savoring each moment of life regardless of its hazards, adversities, misfortunes, and seemingly lack of overriding purpose, an impertinent ward of time transcends his or her incarnate incarceration.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“The powerful questions of life produce a dynamic dualism, which interplay creates the operatic structure that we must operate. Can the flesh and spirit coexist? Can inner despair and renewed optimism reside under the same roof? Can we harness humankind’s wretchedness in order to broker its salvation? Should all people seek out perfection or work to accept their fallibility? Should I eschew pain or embrace suffering? Do I cave into the meaningless of my life or actively rebel against the patent absurdity of human existence?”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“It's not wrong to feel like the world is fucked up being repair, but...you can try to repair what you can, using whatever skills you might have.”
― Toshio Meronek, Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary

“I wasn't only sad--I was angry. I still felt lost in a dark, terrifying maze. And I was furious at the world for leaving me here.”
― Sara Gran, The Book of the Most Precious Substance

“So this is hell. I'd never have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the "burning marl." Old wives' tales! There's no need for red-hot pokers. HELL IS-OTHER PEOPLE!”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit

“Am I alone in an ensconced inner world where I obsessively worry about what happens to me, where the story of personal survival becomes the central theme of my shallow existence? I think not. Swaddled in our own brand of strangeness, we all struggle to come to terms with our demonstrated personal shortcomings. Our yearned-for life of living in pink skyways far removed from harm’s way is depressingly marked in contrast by our actual crabby existence spent scuttling along akin to a smug lobster, scrunched down on the asphalt streets, working in the city grid as frumpy members of the faceless mob.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“A person whom questions the purpose behind enduring life strafed with pain and self-doubt must construct a self-rescue plan. Does a demoralized person discover contentment and a meaningful life through expanded intellectual studies or by becoming engrossed in living deeply connected to nature? Should I seek personal conquest and eradication of ugly segments of my persona or merger and unification of the irrational splinters of a fragmented and traumatized personality? How does a person express what it means to be human? How does a person locate the incandescent flash of their flesh? If I shout into the wind with all my might, will responsive people hear my wild cry? Will placing pen to paper buffet the cantos of a troubled mind, expose the operatic musings of a madman’s ranting song, or will looking at each day through the diverse lens of both detachment and solipsism ignite an illuminating shaft of wisdom to grace the sinkhole of a fallen man?”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“I once witnessed a rather unfortunate production of Shakespeare's Hamlet - the lead actor didn't know his existential angst from his iambic pentameter and, alas, poor Yorick was a bemused bystander.”
― Stewart Stafford

“A person functioning exclusively in the Cartesian mode may be free from manifest assumptions but cannot be considered mentally healthy. Such individuals typically lead ego-centered, competitive, goal-oriented lives. They tend to be unable to derive satisfaction from ordinary activities in everyday life and can become alienated from their inner world. For people whose existence is dominated by this mode of experience no level of wealth, power, or fame will bring genuine satisfaction. They become infused with a sense of meaninglessness, futility, and even absurdity that no amount of external success can dispel.”
― Fritjof Capra, Uncommon Wisdom : Conversations With Remarkable People

“I couldn't bear being this suburban mom who was alternating between screaming at her kids and being the heartfelt, privileged witness to their joy. But the people around us - the haranguing mothers and sexless fathers - I kept trying to find ways that I was better than these people, but all I kept landing on was the fact that the common denominator was me.”
― Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Fleishman Is in Trouble

“I have to assume that the images and information filtered through my consciousness are intrinsically relevant to these purposes that simultaneously compel and distort me. Everything exacerbates what it exasperates in an organic repetitive cycle.”
― Tamara K. Walker

“No importa tanto la diferenciación entre el progreso representado por el ahorro de energía (que simplifica la vida cotidiana) o por la expansión de energía (que potencia nuestras aspiraciones o "aficiones" naturales), sino el acento puesto en la excesiva velocidad con que estas transformaciones han afectado al Japón, como consecuencia de la procedencia externa de los estímulos que, al no ser fruto de una secuencia generado intrínsecamente, ha obligado a una apresurada (y por ello superficial) asimilación de los cambios (muchos en muy poco tiempo), lo cual ha llegado a provocar una auténtica "angustia existencial.”
― Natsume Sōseki, My Individualism & The Philosophical Foundations of Literature

“Dadas las circunstancias, debo asumir a la vez los papeles de demandante y demandado, de juez y parte, y encuentro toda esa farsa de la naturaleza totalmente absurda, considerando incluso humillante tener que soportarla.
En consecuencia, en mi indiscutible calidad de demandante y demandado, de juez y parte, condeno a esa naturaleza, que con tanta desconsideración y rudeza me ha traído al mundo para sufrir, a perecer conmigo… desconsideración y rudeza me ha
traído al mundo para sufrir, a perecer conmigo… Y como no puedo aniquilar a la
naturaleza, me aniquilo a mí mismo”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, A Writer's Diary, Volume One, 1873-1876

“But he knew he had to live his life without being afraid to die. The cage had taught him that.”
― Jacqueline Simon Gunn, Flaco the Owl Spreads His Wings

“The awful truth is that the graveyard is every person’s final destiny.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Similar to a rat stuck on a rickety boat lost at sea, many of us feel bollixed in by our wooden shell lives. The chore of resurrecting our abysmal life consists of applying a vulnerary of homeopathic remedies to our self-inflicted wounds, liberally applying the principle that small doses of what makes a person ill also cures them. In order to relive intolerable pressure bearing down upon a person haunted by strife, sorrow, travail, and doubt, a battered soul must muster all their compressed resolve and push back with their time-hardened gristle. We must use all the tools at our disposal in order to survive including tirelessly cultivating our physical hardiness and mental flexibility, and by meticulously engaging in the pursuit of learning. We intuitively seek out bliss and we must be mindful to listen to our internal voice counseling us to attain emotional harmony by living in a synchronized manner with other people and all of nature.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“If allegories unfold and any one of the above is true, you’re a speck in the larger order of things, useless, leading a pointless life.”
― Sindhu Rajasekaran, So I Let It Be

“The gyrfalcon Dan flew that day was a bird of the year who was just learning to hunt. When he brought her out, I shook my head at the size of her. She was massive; Dan had aptly named her Jabba the Hut. As with all falcons, female gyrfalcons are a third larger than the males. ... She thought that she was a person and treated Dan as her mate.This gave new meaning to the term "henpecked.”
― Dan O'Brien, The Rites of Autumn

“The Chariot Cometh by Stewart Stafford

O gleaming chariot of restoration,
Ferrying that tortuous animal, Man,
Ministering as Gods to mortals,
Dispensing the miracle of rebirth.

Woe to that lost, delinquent essedum,
Neglecting and failing malcontents,
Memories fade in mind, not in heart,
Angel of mercy now a spirit of vengeance.

Grief stalks the mad and jealous soul,
Juggling coals of rectitude and retribution,
Scalded palms scant refuge from pain,
Let savagery flee to its depths, be free.

Examine the formidable hand-me-downs,
And transform them into life's armour,
Or be an infant in hanging father's flesh,
Abdicating the procession of succession.

© Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“dadas las circunstancias, debo asumir a la vez los papeles de demandante y demandado, de juez y parte, y encuentro toda esa farsa de la naturaleza totalmente absurda, considerando incluso humillante tener que soportarla.

En consecuencia, en mi indiscutible calidad de demandante y demandado, de juez y parte, condeno a esa naturaleza, que con tanta desconsideración y rudeza me ha traído al mundo para sufrir, a perecer conmigo… Y como no puedo aniquilar a la naturaleza, me aniquilo a mí mismo”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Diario de Un Escritor y Otros Escritos

“He thought about the loss of humanity that was eating away at the world and the loss of the connection to the self that ate away at the consciousness which animated all into being. He thought about how the collective psyche was teetering on that knife’s edge between a desperation to live and a desperation to die. And here he was at the cusp of it himself.”
― Casey Fisher, The Subtle Cause

“Earth is not the sort of place to bring someone you love.”
― Vana Elaire, Risen Apes

“The real universe is just that black. The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds other life — another hunter, an angel or a demon, a delicate infant or a tottering old man, a fairy or a demigod — there's only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them. In this forest, hell is other people. An eternal threat that any life that exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out. This is the picture of cosmic civilization. It's the explanation for the Fermi Paradox. But in this dark forest, there's a stupid child called humanity, who has built a bonfire and is standing beside it shouting, 'Here I am! Here I am!”
― Liu Cixin , The Dark Forest

“I’m about to begin halfway saying that—
—that she was incompetent. Incompetent for life. She had never figured out how to figure things out. She was only vaguely beginning to know the kind of absence she had of herself inside her. If she were an expressive creature she would say: the world is outside me, I am outside me.”
― Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star

“I can't process that I actually exist.”
― Sadia Hakim, The Weight of Tender Things

“Give me a reason to continue living...
It's not enough to dance in the rain today.”
― Sadia Hakim, Prosetry

“Life sucks the marrow out of your bones, and it laughs at the ashes of your existence.”
― Sadia Hakim, The Weight of Tender Things

“I have always seen
myself as a tragic
happening that has
ever happened to a
body.”
― Sadia Hakim, The Weight of Tender Things

“I am a sad soul; this is not where I belong.”
― Sadia Hakim, Prosetry