Quote on sucide

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest -- whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories -- comes afterward. These are games; one must first answer.

ALBERT CAMUS, An Absurd Reasoning

If suicide be supposed a crime, 'tis only cowardice can impel us to it. If it be no crime, both prudence and courage should engage us to rid ourselves at once of existence, when it becomes a burden.

DAVID HUME, Essays on Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul

The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets successfully through many a bad night.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Beyond Good and Evil

If I commit suicide, it will not be to destroy myself but to put myself back together again. Suicide will be for me only one means of violently reconquering myself, of brutally invading my being, of anticipating the unpredictable approaches of God. By suicide, I reintroduce my design in nature, I shall for the first time give things the shape of my will.

ANTONIN ARTAUD, "On Suicide
When your principles seem to be demanding suicide, clearly it’s time to check your premises.

NATHANIEL BRANDEN, The Free Radical, Oct. 2004

In most cases, suicide is a solitary event and yet it has often far-reaching repercussions for many others. It is rather like throwing a stone into a pond; the ripples spread and spread.

ALISON WERTHEIMER, A Special Scar

Suicide creates a monstrous emotional upsurge of shame and guilt. Everyone participates in feeling responsible and even shamed at knowing the suicidal candidate. If these feelings are not healed the vampire of suicidal death can strike again and again.

LINDA LEE LANDON, Life After Suicide

When suicide is out of fashion we conclude that none but madmen destroy themselves; and all the efforts of courage appear chimerical to dastardly minds ... Nevertheless, how many instances are there, well attested, of men, in every other respect perfectly discreet, who, without remorse, rage, or despair, have quitted life for no other reason than because it was a burden to them, and have died with more composure than they lived?

DAVID HUME, Essays on Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul

Suicide may also be regarded as an experiment -- a question which man puts to Nature, trying to force her to answer. The question is this: What change will death produce in a man’s existence and in his insight into the nature of things? It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer.

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER, Parerga and Paralipomena

If suicide is allowed then everything is allowed. If anything is not allowed then suicide is not allowed. This throws a light on the nature of ethics, for suicide is, so to speak, the elementary sin. And when one investigates it it is like investigating mercury vapour in order to comprehend the nature of vapours.

LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Notebooks

I'm not disparaging suicides when I call them weak, I'm pointing out that anybody who would consider doing a thing like that needs help. I don't think a normal, mentally healthy person commits suicide.

JESSE VENTURA, I Ain't Got Time to Bleed

From the perspective of the one committing suicide, his or her act can be one of the most perverse forms of moral manipulation, as it abandons those left behind to their shame, guilt, and grief. Suicide is something like a metaphysical "I gotcha!" It is often an attempt to kill or wound others.

STANLEY HAUERWAS, The Hauerwas Reader

Suicide is the dumbest possible way of getting revenge. Why is that? Because the people you want to strike back at are the very same folks who won't even remember you a week after you're gone, while the people you want to spare most -- the people who love you -- are the ones who will have to live with the pain of your suicide for the rest of their lives.

DAVID J. LIEBERMAN, Instant Analysis

You realize that suicide's a criminal offense -- In less enlightened times they'd have hung you for it.

PETER COOK, Bedazzled

If a person with multiple personalities threatens suicide, is that considered a hostage situation?

STEVEN WRIGHT, stand-up routine

The obsession with suicide is characteristic of the man who can neither live nor die, and whose attention never swerves from this double impossibility.

EMILE CIORAN, The New Gods

All suicides have the responsibility of fighting against the temptation of suicide. Every one of them knows very well in some corner of his soul that suicide, though a way out, is rather a mean and shabby one, and that it is nobler and finer to be conquered by life than to fall by one's own hand.

HERMANN HESSE, Steppenwolf

The only difference between a suicide and a martyrdom really is press coverage.

CHUCK PALAHNIUK, Survivor

You are certainly wrong to compare suicide ... with great accomplishments, since it cannot be considered as anything but a weakness. After all, it is easier to die than to endure a harrowing life with fortitude.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE, The Sorrows of Young Werther

There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbours will say.

CYRIL CONNOLLY, The Unquiet Grave

Suicide is much easier and more acceptable in Hollywood than growing old gracefully.

JULIE BURCHILL, Girls on Film

Suicide is a whispered word, inappropriate for polite company. Family and friends often pretend they do not hear the word's dread sound even when it is. For suicide is a taboo subject that stigmatizes not only the victim but the survivors as well.

EARL A. GROLLMAN, Suicide

The reality of suicide is far different from the fantasy. Most suicidal thinkers romanticize their death by suicide, failing to realize that any suicide gesture or attempt can result in permanent brain, kidney, or liver damage, loss of limbs, blindness, or even death.

SUSAN ROSE BLAUNER, How I Stayed Alive When My Brain Was Trying to Kill Me

Nowadays, suicide is just a way of disappearing. It is carried out timidly, quietly, and falls flat. It is no longer an action, only a submission.

CESARE PAVESE, This Business of Living, Apr. 24, 1936

Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

PHIL DONAHUE, NBC TV, May 23, 1984

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet

Surely there was nothing more pathetic than screwing up your own suicide.

MICHAEL MARSHALL, The Upright Man