Quotes by Lev Shestov

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And the fool thought in his heart: there is no God. Sometimes this is the sign of the end and death. Other times, of the beginning and of life. Having felt that God does not exist, man suddenly understands the nightmarish horror and wild madness of his earthly existence, and understanding, he awakens, if not to the ultimate knowledge, then to the knowledge immediately inferior to the ultimate.

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When you go astray, when the way goes astray you, then... But I started talking about a labyrinth, and what can be said about a labyrinth except that it is a labyrinth?

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When you read the books of writers long gone, you always get a strange feeling: these people, who lived two hundred, three hundred, two thousand years ago, are so foreign today - wherever they are - of what they once wrote on earth: and we seek eternal truths in their writings!

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We live in the realm of ghosts, and our greatest fear is lest we violate the solemn harmony of the enchanted realm.

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New thoughts, even our own, do not gain our trust very quickly. First of all we have to get used to them.

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Moscow burned from a twopenny candle, and Rasputin and Lenin - also twopenny candles - burned Russia entirely.

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The greatest and most important thoughts, revelations, are actually empty, without a covering of words: finding words to express them is a special job, very difficult, a real art. And vice versa: banalities and nonsense appear immediately stuffed into motley rags, although they are old - so that they can be presented to the public on the spot, without effort.

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Man is used to having beliefs - this is the reality. We all can't do without licks, even though deep down we despise them.