“The sadness will last forever.” (Vincent Van Gogh, Journals)
“I had always been aware that the Universe is sad; everything in it, animate or inanimate, the wild creatures, the stones, the stars, was enveloped in the great sadness, pervaded by it. Existence had no use. It was without end or reason. The most beautfiul things in it, a flower or a song, as well as the most compelling, a desire or a thought, were pointless. So great a sorrow. And I knew that the only rest from my anxiety—for I had been trembling even in infancy—lay in acknowledging and absorbing this sadness.” (Hayden Carruth, Reluctantly: Autobiographical Essays)
“How to make my sadness more than a lament for feeling? How to feel? How to burn? How to make my anguish metaphysical?” (Susan Sontag, Reborn: Journals and Notebooks)
“A feeling that everything must end, the music, ourselves, the moon, everything. That if you get to the heart of things you find sadness for ever and ever, everywhere; but a beautiful silver sadness, like a Christ face.” (John Fowles, The Collector)
“Not individuals only, but the human race was and always will be inevitably unhappy. Not the human race only, but all animals. Not the animals only, but all other beings in their own way. Not just the individuals, but the species, the races, the kingdoms, the spheres, the systems, the universes.” (Giacomo Leopardi, Zibaldone)
“Sad are only those who understand.” (Arab Proverb)
“Both Freud and Schopenhauer emphasize how, from a cosmic perspective, conscious life is a minor and temporary deviation from the normal state of things. Schopenhauer speaks of the infinite amount of time both before our birth and after our death, compared to which an individual life is but a moment. Freud describes consciousness as the detour an unconscious wish takes on the way to its satisfaction; and life as a detour from death to death. From this perspective, it is not really surprising that our experience is dominated by unhappiness. Our situation is out-of-joint with the universe to begin with. We cannot hope to set it right—we can only await the release from this predicament provided by death. In the meantime, we merely manage our condition—such management is, to Schopenhauer, the purpose of philosophy; for Freud, it is psychotherapy that serves this end. But the aim, in both cases, is not to create happiness or virtue but to minimize unhappiness by bringing us to greater knowledge of the gap between time-bound consciousness and the timeless reality consciousness defies.” (Joshua Foa Dienstag, Pessimism: Philosophy, Ethic, Spirit)
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