The Conspiracy Against the Human Race QUOTES

121 " Better to kill time than kill oneself "

― Thomas Ligotti , The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

122 " An individual’s demarcations as a being, not his trespass of them, create his identity and preserve his illusion of being something special and not a freak of chance, a product of blind mutations. Transcending all illusions and their emergent activities—having absolute control of what we are and not what we need to be so that we may survive the most unsavory facts of life and death—would untether us from the moorings of our self-limited selves. "

― Thomas Ligotti , The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

123 " Renowned for stating his convictions in the form of a paradox, as above, Chesterton, along with anyone who has something positive or equivocal to say about the human race, comes out on top in the crusade for truth. (There is nothing paradoxical about that.) Therefore, should your truth run counter to that of individuals who devise or applaud paradoxes that stiff up the status quo, you would be well advised to take your arguments, tear them up, and throw them in someone else’s garbage. "

― Thomas Ligotti , The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

124 " Established: Consciousness is not often viewed as being an instrument of tragedy in human life. But to Zapffe, consciousness would long past have proved fatal for human beings if we did not do something about it. “Why,” Zapffe asked, “has mankind not long ago gone extinct during great epidemics of madness? Why do only a fairly minor number of individuals perish because they fail to endure the strain of living—because cognition gives them more than they can carry?” Zapffe’s answer: “Most people learn to save themselves by artificially limiting the content of consciousness. "

― Thomas Ligotti , The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

125 " If you interrupted them in the middle of an ecstatic moment, which pessimists do have, and asked if existence is basically undesirable, they would reply “Of course” before returning to their ecstasy. Why they should answer in this way is a closed book. "

― Thomas Ligotti , The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

126 " Whether you think consciousness to be a benefit or a horror, this is only what you think—and nothing else. "

― Thomas Ligotti , The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

127 " Life had overshot its target, blowing itself apart. A species had been armed too heavily—by spirit made almighty without, but equally a menace to its own well-being. Its weapon was like a sword without hilt or plate, a two-edged blade cleaving everything; but he who is to wield it must grasp the blade and turn one edge toward himself. "

― Thomas Ligotti , The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

128 " Immune to the blandishments of religions, countries, families, and whatever else that—with a smattering of emotive images and strains of maudlin music—can move the average citizen to tears or violence, the pessimist is invisible in both history books and the media. Without belief in gods or ghosts, unmotivated by a comprehensive delusion, he could never plant a bomb, plan a revolution, or shed blood for a cause. Pessimists are indeed lackadaisical as partisans in the human drama. "

― Thomas Ligotti , The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

129 " Whatever else we may be as creatures that go to and fro on the earth and walk up and down upon it, we are meat. A cannibalistic tribe that once flourished had a word to describe what they ate. That word translates as “the food that talks.” Most of the food that we have eaten over the course of human history has not talked. But it does make other noises, terrible sounds as it is converted from living meat to dead meat on the slaughterhouse floor. If we could hear these sounds every time we sat down to a hearty meal, would we still be the wanton gobblers of flesh that most of us are now? "

― Thomas Ligotti , The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

130 " Why should there be something rather than nothing? "

― Thomas Ligotti , The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

131 " Optimism has always been an undeclared policy of human culture—one that grew out of our animal instincts to survive and reproduce—rather than an articulated body of thought. It is the default condition of our blood and cannot be effectively questioned by our minds or put in grave doubt by our pains. This would explain why at any given time there are more cannibals than philosophical pessimists. "

― Thomas Ligotti , The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

132 " Only catatonics and coma patients can persevere in a dignified withdrawal from life’s rattle and hum. Without a “yes” in our hearts, nothing would be done. And to be done with our existence en masse would be the most ambitious affirmation of all. "

― Thomas Ligotti , The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

133 " Within the strictures of commonsense reality and personal ability, we can choose to do anything we like in this world … with one exception: We cannot choose what any of our choices will be. To do that, we would have to be capable of making ourselves into self-made individuals who can choose what they choose as opposed to being individuals who simply make choices. For instance, we may want to become bodybuilders and choose to do so. But if we do not want to become bodybuilders we cannot make ourselves into someone who does want to be a bodybuilder. For that to happen, there would have to be another self inside us who made us choose to want to become bodybuilders. And inside that self, there would have to be still another self who made that self want to choose to choose to make us want to become bodybuilders. "

― Thomas Ligotti , The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

134 " The last of us could be the very best of us who ever roamed the earth, the great exemplars of a humanity we used to dream of becoming before we got wise to the reality that we are just a mob always in the market for new recruits. "

― Thomas Ligotti , The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

135 " As a rule, anyone desirous of an audience, or even a place in society, might profit from the following motto: “If you can’t say something positive about humanity, then say something equivocal. "

― Thomas Ligotti , The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

136 " Without an iota of uncertainty, humankind is and will always be unsuited to take charge of its own deliverance. The delusional will forever be with us, thereby making pain, fear, and denial of what is right in front of our face the preferred style of living and the one that will be passed on to countless generations. "

― Thomas Ligotti , The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

137 " In a world without a destination, we cannot even break ground on our Tower of Babel, and no amount of rush and hurry on our part will change that. "

― Thomas Ligotti , The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

138 " Bahnsen declared that, appearances to the contrary, all reality is the expression of a unified, unchanging force—a cosmic movement that various philosophers have characterized in various ways. To Bahnsen, this force and its movement were monstrous in nature, resulting in a universe of indiscriminate butchery and mutual slaughter among its individuated parts. Additionally, the “universe according to Bahnsen” has never had a hint of design or direction. From the beginning, it was a play with no plot and no players that were anything more than portions of a master drive of purposeless self-mutilation. "

― Thomas Ligotti , The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

139 " The value of a philosopher’s thought is not in its answers—no philosopher has any that are more helpful than saying nothing at all—but in how well they speak to the prejudgments of their consumers. Such is the importance—and the nullity—of rhetoric. Ask any hard-line pessimist, but do not expect him to expect you to take his words seriously. "

― Thomas Ligotti , The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

140 " reason is merely the mouthpiece of emotion. "

― Thomas Ligotti , The Conspiracy Against the Human Race