Leo Tolstoy Quotes

My search not only failed, but I convinced myself that all those who had searched like myself had failed also, and come like me to the despairing conviction that the only absolute knowledge man can possess is this—that life is without a meaning.

The meaningless absurdity of life is the only incontestable knowledge accessible to man.

I like to remind myself that everything is meaningless.

The concept of absurdity is something I'm attracted to.

The meaning of life is life.

In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead. In the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead.

Famously, there's not really anywhere to go after nihilism. It's not progressing toward anything, it's a statement of outrage, however brilliant.

Regarding life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is worthless.

I searched all areas of knowledge, and not only did I fail to find anything, but I was convinced that all those who had explored as I did had also come up with nothing. Not only had they found nothing, but they had clearly acknowledged the same thing that had brought me to despair: the only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.

Our conviction that the world is meaningless is due in part to the fact (discussed in a later paragraph) that the philosophy of meaningless lends itself very effectively to furthering the ends of political and erotic passion; in part to a genuine intellectual error - the error of identifying the world of science, a world from which all meaning has deliberately been excluded, with ultimate reality.

Although it is a gloomy view to suppose that life will die out, sometimes when I contemplate the things that people do with their lives I think it is almost a consolation

Now the answer ... is plain, but it is so unpalatable that most men will not face it. There is no reason for life and life has no meaning.

L'absurde est la notion essentielle et la premie' re ve? rite? . The absurd is the fundamental idea and the first truth.

Everything in the world is gloriously meaningless.

If sub specie aeternitatis [from eternity's point of view] there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that does not matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair.

Philosophy seems to me on the whole a rather hopeless business.

Nihilism is best done by professionals.

We're all making castles in the sand, wonderful tapestries, an exquisite corpse. But is it meaningful? No. It's dogs barking. It doesn't mean anything beyond our yelping, at the pain of being alive.

Since all life is futility, then the decision to exist must be the most irrational of all.

All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than animals that know nothing.

At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.

Life has become the ideology of its own absence.

The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.

The flesh, alas, is sad, and I have read all the books.

The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.