JCJBergman

“The deepest subjective experiences are also the most universal, because through them one reaches the original source of life.”
― Emil M. Cioran, On the Heights of Despair

“And, pray tell, what were you before birth?" inquired that brilliant woman. "Several unqualified lumps of unorganized matter as yet without definite form or at least lacking any form you can hope to remember. Well, you're going to turn back into those same or similar lumps of matter, you're going to become the raw material out of which new beings will be fashioned, and this will happen when natural processes bring it about. Shall you find all this pleasurable? No. Shall you suffer? No. Is there anything truly objectionable here? No; and what is he who on earth agrees to sacrifice all his pleasures in exchange for the certitude of never having to undergo pain? What would he be, if he were able to strike this bargain? An inert, motionless being. And after he died, what will he be? Exactly the same thing. What then is the use of fretting, since the law of Nature positively condemns you to the same state you'd gladly accept if you were given the opportunity to choose? Eh, Juliette, have you existed since the beginning of time? No; and does that fact make you grieve and despair? Have you any better cause to despair at the fact that you're not going to exist till the end of time? La, la, calm yourself, my pigeon; the cessation of being affrights only the imagination that has created the execrable dogma of an afterlife.”
― Marquis de Sade, Juliette

“The fact that entangled particles can influence each other faster than the speed of light is taken as proof that there is a spiritual domain of instant communication outside material reality; the fact that a wave function collapses into reality through observation is interpreted as a proof that observation creates reality... no wonder many podcasts claim that quantum mechanics proves material reality is a simulacrum, that all there is, is spirit, etc.”
― Slavoj Žižek, Quantum History: A New Materialist Philosophy

“Much as Sade had done, Nietzsche valued the ancients for the pleasure they had taken in inflicting suffering; for knowing that punishment might be festive; for demonstrating that, 'in the days before mankind grew ashamed of its cruelty, before pessimists existed, life on earth was more cheerful than it is now'.”
― Tom Holland, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World