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“I speak my own sins; I cannot judge another. I have no tongue for it.”
― Arthur Miller, The Crucible

“Man, the bravest of animals and the one most accustomed to suffering, does not repudiate suffering as such; he desires it, he even seeks it out, provided he is shown a meaning for it, a purpose of suffering.
The meaninglessness of suffering, not suffering itself, was the curse that lay over mankind so far―and the ascetic ideal offered man meaning!
It was the only meaning offered so far; any meaning is better than none at all; the ascetic ideal was in every sense the "faute de mieux" par excellence so far.
In it, suffering was interpreted; the tremendous void seemed to have been filled; the door was closed to any kind of suicidal nihilism.
This interpretation - there is no doubt of it - brought fresh suffering with it, deeper, more inward, more poisonous, more life-destructive suffering: it placed all suffering under the perspective of guilt.
But all this notwithstanding - man was saved thereby, he possessed a meaning, he was henceforth no longer 1ike a leaf in the wind, a plaything of nonsense - the "sense-less" - he could now willsomething; no matter at first to what end, why, with what he willed: the will itself was saved.
We can no longer conceal from ourselves what is expressed by all that willing which has taken its direction from the ascetic ideal: this hatred of the human, and even more of the animal, and more still of the material, this horror of the senses, of reason itself, this fear of happiness and beauty, this longing to get away from all appearance, change, becoming, death, wishing, from longing itself.
All this means - let us dare to grasp it - a will to nothingness, an aversion to life, a rebellion against the most fundamental presuppositions of life; but it is and remains a will.
Man would rather will nothingness than not will at all.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals

“I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness - a real thorough-going illness.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead

“Life is a constant process of dying.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer