Tag: quotes

Quotes from Sigmund Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle

Quotes from Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle

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Here I am revisiting Sigmund Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle.
Here I am looking for death again — Thanatos, my old friend.
Does this mean that I will go back to reading books like Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death, Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal, Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air, etc.?
Does this mean that I will go back to saying that life is driven by death?
We shall see.
Maybe I’ll say, We are nothing but instances of self-conscious Death.
Later.
For now, I’ll be saving the quotes I like in a blog post and call it a day.
Outside, the birds are singing, and that’s where I need to be.

Quotes from Sigmund Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle

It must be pointed out, however, that strictly speaking it is incorrect to talk of the dominance of the pleasure principle over the course of mental processes. If such a dominance existed, the immense majority of our mental processes would have to be accompanied by pleasure or to lead to pleasure, whereas universal experience completely contradicts any such conclusion.

Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle

Most of the unpleasure we experience is perceptual unpleasure.

Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle

“Anxiety” describes a particular state of expecting the danger or preparing for it, even though it may be an unknown one. “Fear” requires a definite object of which to be afraid. “Fright”, however, is the name we give to the state a person gets into when he has run into danger without being prepared for it; it emphasizes the factor of surprise.

Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle

In this way the first instinct came into being: the instinct to return to the inanimate state.

Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle

What we are left with is the fact that the organism wishes to die only in its own fashion.

Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle

We shall find courage to assume that there really does exist in the mind a compulsion to repeat which overrides the pleasure principle.

Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle

The pleasure principle seems actually to serve the death instincts.

Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle
Quotes from Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Quotes from Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Chris Khatsch1 Comment

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is a book that has been living on my desk for months, but it hasn’t been gathering dust like some of the other books I have on my desk. I actually have been reading frequently from it, usually when I’m taking a short break from the computer screen.

I’m not a stoic, but I guess there’s a little stoic in me whether I admit it or not. Moreover, I don’t know how or why, but there’s something Christian about Marcus Aurelius that I like. Reading lines from Meditations has a calming effect.

The first time I read Meditations was years ago. And I have underlined dozens of thought-provoking sentences.

Here are some of them:

  • It is a king’s part to do good and be ill spoken of.
  • Perfection of character requires this, that you should live each day as though it were your last, and be neither excitable, nor lethargic, nor duplicitous.
  • Always live the finest of lives; and the power to do so lies in one’s soul, if one is indifferent to things indifferent.
  • I have often marveled at how everyone loves himself above all others, yet places less value on his own opinion of himself than that of everyone else.
  • Close is the time when you will forget all things; and close, too, the time when all will forget you.

If you liked these quotes, also check my other blog post on Marcus Aurelius, Don’t Forget that You’ll Be Forgotten.

Smoking an Ashton Symmetry cigar while reading Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea

Have a Cigar: Ashton Symmetry Robusto

Chris KhatschLeave a comment

Name: Ashton Symmetry Robusto

Country: Dominican Republic

Shape: Parejo

Size: Robusto (5 inches x 50)

Strength: Medium to Full

It was a sunny November morning, and I didn’t want to waste it.
The sea was a dark blue satin bedsheet; the cargo ships stretched and slept on it like newborn babies.
The clouds in the turquoise sky were few, white, and friendly — like floating daydreams.
The fresh air glided into my lungs and filled me with tranquility.
I opened my humidor to choose the cigar of the day.
The robusto vitola seemed right for the occasion.
I paired the cigar with homemade cappuccino and Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea.
It was a morning well spent.

Only I have no luck any more. But who knows? Maybe today. Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.

From Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea