There is something desperately lonely about Barack Obama's universe. One gets the overwhelming sense of someone yearning for … - Simon Critchley

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Fortitude is the disposition of soul which enables us to despise all inconveniences and the loss of things not in our power.

Simon Critchley

There is something desperately lonely about Barack Obama's universe. One gets the overwhelming sense of someone yearning for connection, for something that binds human beings together, for community and commonality, for what he repeatedly calls "the common good". This is hardly news.

Community, Desperately, Lonely, Sense, Together, Universe

Same Author Quotes

I have argued that philosophy doesn't begin in wonder or in the fact that things are, it begins in a realization that things are not what they might be. It begins with a sense of a lack, of something missing, and that provokes a series of questions.

Philosophy, Missing, Realization, Things, Sense

It is so ridiculous to limit oneself to one version of the truth.

Limits, Oneself, Ridiculous, Version

Just to say "Well, God is dead" in one breath is to say, in another, that nothing means anything. This is the moment of nihilism. Nihilism is the affirmation of meaninglessness.

Mean, Nihilism, Affirmation, Moment, Dead

In relation to the question of hope, I think the only hope we have is hope against hope. We hope for a better world. But of course we can do better than just hope.

Thinking, World, Relation, Think, Against, Question

If the denial of death is self-hatred, as it is to deny our freedom and live in fear of death (which is to say, to live in a form of bondage), then the acceptance and affirmation of death is indeed a form of self-love. But I'd want to make a distinction between a form of self-love which is essential to what it means to be human, and a narcissism of self-regard, like Rousseau's distinction between amour de soi and amour propre, self-love and pride.

Acceptance, Death, Human, Make, Mean, Pride