Lev Shestov Quotes

#1. The sun does not stop shining because we curse or turn our backs to it.

Matshona Dhliwayo

#2. The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is-it's to imagine what is possible.

Bell Hooks

#3. One must not ask for sincere autobiographies from writers. Fiction was invented precisely to give men the possibility of expressing themselves freely.

Lev Shestov

#4. The story of a regeneration of convictions - can any story in the entire field of literature be more filled with thrilling and all-absorbing interest?

Lev Shestov

#5. Dostoevsky does not believe his own words, and he is trying to replace a lack of faith with "feeling" and eloquence.

Lev Shestov

#6. My heroes used to be cowboys.

David Foreman

#7. This Aristotle knew definitely: the truth has the power to force or constrain men, all men alike, whether it be the great Parmenides and the great Alexander or Parmenides' unknown slave and the least of Alexander's stable-men

Lev Shestov

#8. Herein lies the supreme wisdom, human and divine; and the task of philosophy consists in teaching men to submit joyously to Necessity which hears nothing and is indifferent to all.

Lev Shestov

#9. Dostoevsky's nature was two-fold, like Spinoza's, and like that of nearly all those who try to awaken humanity from its torpor.

Lev Shestov

#10. He did not want to be original; he made superhuman efforts to be like everybody else: but there is no escaping one's destiny.

Lev Shestov

#11. If Darwin had seen in life what Dostoevsky saw, he would not have talked of the law of the preservation of species, but of its destruction.

Lev Shestov

#12. But Dostoevsky does allow himself to ask just this very question: whether our reason has any right to judge between the possible and the impossible.

Lev Shestov

#13. Whatever our definition of truth may be, we can never renounce Descartes' clare et distincte (clarity and distinctness).

Lev Shestov

#14. But strange though it may seem, the more he judged, and the more he realized that men feared and acknowledged his right to judge, the more his innermost soul questioned man's right to judgment of any kind.

Lev Shestov

#15. Even the strongest of opponents always has a weakness.
-Itachi Uchiha

Masashi Kishimoto

#16. To praise oneself is considered improper, immodest; to praise one's own sect, one's own philosophy, is considered the highest duty.

Lev Shestov

#17. ( ... )on earth everything has a beginning and nothing has an end.

Lev Shestov

#18. We must live by the light of our own self-satisfaction, through that secret vital busy inwardness which is even more remarkable than our reason.

Iris Murdoch

#19. All experts on WHO advisory groups for developing norms, standards and guidelines are required to disclose interests regarding the advisory committee's area of work. If a declared interest is potentially significant, then the expert is either excluded from the meeting or given a restricted role.

Margaret Chan

#20. It is not man who pursues truth, but truth man.

Lev Shestov

#21. Our earthly loves are but so many silver steps leading us up to the great golden love of God.

Henry Ward Beecher

#22. Maybe it wasn't that he didn't want to talk about himself before now, she thought guiltily. Maybe it's just that I wasn't interested in listening.

Cathy Hapka

#23. We must have infinite faith in each other. If we have not, we must never let it leak out that we have not.

Henry David Thoreau

#24. More striking still, a broken man is generally deprived of everything except the ability to acknowledge and feel his position.

Lev Shestov

#25. Life would again have to make superhuman efforts, "as in a battle," to break open for himself a path through the truths created by the sciences which "dream of being but cannot see it in waking reality.

Lev Shestov

#26. Heretics were most often bitterly persecuted for the their least deviation from accepted belief. It was precisely their obstinacy about trifles that irritated the righteous to madness.

Lev Shestov

#27. It was, come to think of it, a little like a kinder, gentler Psycho-Dad making one of his command decisions. Exactly the same, only without all the fuss and blood.

Ilsa J. Bick

#28. Furthermore, as long as the world shall last, there will always be people who, either for the sake of peace or from an unquiet conscience, will build up sublime lies for their neighbours. And these people have always been and will always be the masters of human thought.

Lev Shestov

#29. But when I went on the stage to do a show, I would put on makeup because I felt that it enhanced my act; it drew attention to what I was doing.

Little Richard

#30. Suffering "buys" something, and this something possesses a certain value for all of us, for common consciousness; by suffering we buy the right to judge.

Lev Shestov

#31. They certified that I was sane; but I know that I am mad. This confession gives us the key to what is most important and significant in Tolstoy's hidden life.

Lev Shestov

#32. I'm seeking out a God who is the insatiable author of countless journeys, but who can still be intimately engaged with every minuscule facet of my journey.

Craig D. Lounsbrough