✓ali

“[L]ife presents itself by no means as a gift for enjoyment, but as a task, a drudgery to be performed; and in accordance with this we see, in great and small, universal need, ceaseless cares, constant pressure, endless strife, compulsory activity, with extreme exertion of all the powers of body and mind. Many millions, united into nations, strive for the common good, each individual on account of his own; but many thousands fall as a sacrifice for it. Now senseless delusions, now intriguing politics, incite them to wars with each other; then the sweat and the blood of the great multitude must flow, to carry out the ideas of individuals, or to expiate their faults. In peace industry and trade are active, inventions work miracles, seas are navigated, delicacies are collected from all ends of the world, the waves engulf thousands. All push and drive, others acting; the tumult is indescribable. But the ultimate aim of it all, what is it? To sustain ephemeral and tormented individuals through a short span of time in the most fortunate case with endurable want and comparative freedom from pain, which, however, is at once attended with ennui; then the reproduction of this race and its striving. In this evident disproportion between the trouble and the reward, the will to live appears to us from this point of view, if taken objectively, as a fool, or subjectively, as a delusion, seized by which everything living works with the utmost exertion of its strength for some thing that is of no value. But when we consider it more closely, we shall find here also that it is rather a blind pressure, a tendency entirely without ground or motive.”
― Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror

“Within the strictures of commonsense reality and personal ability, we can choose to do anything we like in this world … with one exception: We cannot choose what any of our choices will be. To do that, we would have to be capable of making ourselves into self-made individuals who can choose what they choose as opposed to being individuals who simply make choices. For instance, we may want to become bodybuilders and choose to do so. But if we do not want to become bodybuilders we cannot make ourselves into someone who does want to be a bodybuilder. For that to happen, there would have to be another self inside us who made us choose to want to become bodybuilders. And inside that self, there would have to be still another self who made that self want to choose to choose to make us want to become bodybuilders.”
― Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror

“I could die for you. But I couldn't, and wouldn't, live for you.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“لما تقوم الصبح لوحدك
فايق أوى فرحان
والدنيا بتاخدك بالحضن من غير لف ودوران
وإنه كمان مسموح لك تحلم وبدون استئذان
لما تحس بروحك طايرة وبتقرب منك
وقلبك رغم الحزن يقولك مش زعلان منك
وإنك لسه بتقدر تعشق
وإن الكلمة بتطلع سهلة مش غصب عنك
وإن حياتك كلها تفرق عن كام ساعة فاتوا
وإن النقط السودة ف توبك اختفوا أو ماتوا
وإنك حد مصالح روحه وبيحب حياته
إياك تسأل ليه وإزاى وتدور على تفسير
وامسك فيها بعمرك كله وأوعى تسيبها تطير
أصلها حالة جميلة جميلة ومابتحصلش كتير”
― علي سلامة