"You're obliged to pretend respect for
people and institutions you think absurd. You live attached in a cowardly
fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn, and know lack all
foundation. It is that permanent contradiction between your ideas and desires
and all the dead formalities and vain pretenses of your civilization which
makes you sad, troubled and unbalanced. In that intolerable conflict you lose
all joy of life and all feeling of personality, because at every moment they
suppress and restrain and check the free play of your powers. That's the
poisoned and mortal wound of the civilized world." (Octave Mirbeau, Torture
Garden)
“In the depths of my heart I can’t help being
convinced that my dear fellow-men, with a few exceptions, are worthless.”
(Sigmund Freud)
“Life is not an easy matter…. You cannot live
through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before
you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above
all kinds of perfidy and baseness.” (Leon Trotsky)
“Ignorance is king. Many would not profit by his
abdication. Many enrich themselves by means of his dark monarchy. They are his
Court, and in his name they defraud and govern, enrich themselves and
perpetuate their power. Even literacy they fear, for the written word is
another channel of communication that might cause their enemies to become
united. Their weapons are keen-honed, and they use them with skill. They will
press the battle upon the world when their interests are threatened, and the
violence which follows will last until the structure of society as it now
exists is leveled to rubble, and a new society emerges. I am sorry. But that is
how I see it.” (Walter M. Miller, Jr.)
“Life is such unutterable hell, solely because it
is sometimes beautiful. If we could only be miserable all the time, if there
could be no such things as love or beauty or faith or hope, if I could be
absolutely certain that my love would never be returned: how much more simple
life would be. One could plod through the Siberian salt mines of existence
without being bothered about happiness.” (T.H. White)
"You know, the Philistines have long since
discarded the rack and stake as a means of suppressing the opinions they
feared: they've discovered a much more deadly weapon of destruction -- the
wisecrack.” (W. Somerset Maugham)