#chestov

[i-just-want-to-destroy]

Chestov discovers the fundamental absurdity of all existence, he does not say: "This is the absurd," but rather: "This is God: we must rely on him even if he does not correspond to any of our rational categories." So that confusion may not be possible, the Russian philosopher even hints that this God is perhaps full of hatred and hateful, incomprehensible and contradictory; but the more hideous is his face, the more he asserts his power. His greatness is his incoherence. His proof is his inhumanity.

Albert Camus on Chestov in Myth of Sisyphus

[maeiajiatheme]

…probablement que toute pensée profonde doit commencer par le désespoir.

Chestov , Sur les confins de la vie

[inertescapist]

And with what did he [Nietzsche] set out on this new path? What did he have in place of his earlier convictions? The answer can be given in a word: nothing. Nothing but loathsome physical suffering in the present; shameful, humiliating memories of the past; and a mad fear of the future. He could have no hope, for what is a broken, sick man capable of when he has wasted the best years of his life on futile, needless projects which had brought him nothing?

- Lev Shestov, Dostoevsky and Nietzsche: The Philosophy of Tragedy

[inertescapist]

All these "heroes" are Dostoevsky's own flesh and blood—dreamers, romantics, authors of plans for the organization of future humanity, devoted friends of humankind, who suddenly became ashamed of their nobility, their sublime reveries, and abruptly understood that all these lofty pronouncements were mere chatter and added nothing to the common treasury of humanity. Their tragedy lies in their inability to begin another life, a new life.

- Lev Shestov, Dostoevsky and Nietzsche: The Philosophy of Tragedy