Is this an agreeable quote about suicide to you guys? One my my favorites so i thought id share

>The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world. His act is worse (symbolically considered) than any rape or dynamite outrage. For it destroys all buildings: it insults all women. The thief is satisfied with diamonds; but the suicide is not: that is his crime. He cannot be bribed, even by the blazing stones of the Celestial City. The thief compliments the things he steals, if not the owner of them. But the suicide insults everything on earth by not stealing it. He defiles every flower by refusing to live for its sake. There is not a tiny creature in the cosmos at whom his death is not a sneer. When a man hangs himself on a tree, the leaves might fall off in anger and the birds fly away in fury: for each has received a personal affront. Of course there may be pathetic emotional excuses for the act. There often are for rape, and there almost always are for dynamite. But if it comes to clear ideas and the intelligent meaning of things, then there is much more rational and philosophic truth in the burial at the cross-roads and the stake driven through the body, than in Mr. Archer's suicidal automatic machines. There is a meaning in burying the suicide apart. The man's crime is different from other crimes -- for it makes even crimes impossible.

G.K. Chesterton

OP here: For anyone whos wondering the source is Orthodoxy written by the man above.

I'm reading Orthodoxy right now and I'm throroughly unimpressed so far. Stylistically he's a mess. And his arguments for Christianity seem to come down to "muh feels"

>2969273
Honestly ive only read little bits of it; never the whole thing through. I thought he peaked on some pretty good topics. The one i posted is agreeable to me at least. I dont look at his work as a universally objective guide. I mostly look at it as a subjective perspective on some topics. Im not christian and i know he was very religious, but i think his points can be made from secular logic as well.

>“It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.”

>“Only optimists commit suicide, optimists who no longer succeed at being optimists. The others, having no reason to live, why would they have any to die?”

Emil M. Cioran

Could you elaborate on the first one? Also GK Chesterton has a section devoted to optimists and pessimists. It doesnt relate to suicide but still interesting nonetheless.

>The only thing which might be considered evident was that they could not mean what they said; for the ordinary verbal explanation was that the optimist thought this world as good as it could be, while the pessimist thought it as bad as it could be. Both these statements being obviously raving nonsense, one had to cast about for other explanations. An optimist could not mean a man who thought everything right and nothing wrong. For that is meaningless; it is like calling everything right and nothing left. Upon the whole, I came to the conclusion that the optimist thought everything good except the pessimist, and that the pessimist thought everything bad, except himself.

Shitty argument with zero basis in reality

Is this the excuse he made up to justify not killing himself? Did he actually believe it, or was he aware that he was simply too much of a pussy to commit suicide?

Could you explain why its a shitty argument? Im not nit picking and trying to prove you wrong im actually curious. I believe there is some truth to it. Yea, sure.. when youre that depressed you dont think about other peoples efforts in this world, but personally, i get some euphoria thinking about the accomplishments of what people can do. I know that may sound pretentious, but i really do believe killing yourself kind of undermines someones potential. Im all for people killing themselves if they really cant cope with certain things. If i was a girl in Iraq or Saudi Arabia i may consider it, or a jew in nazi germany.

He probably was pussy enough to not commit suicide. I am for sure, its probably why this quote resonates with me, honestly.

>believes in an objective reality

To be fair i do too. That whole "perception is reality" thing seems a bit pretentious to me. Reality is reality, perception is attitude/belief.

Very good stylist, if you don't mind the Latin-inflected pre-modernist British style
It's a solid argument, if you decide life isn't worth living, you decide nothing is worth living for. For every working artist you are saying your work isn't worth seeing, for every hurting person you're saying you aren't worth helping. I'll admit there are extenuating circumstances. As for him being a pussy, by all accounts he was a happy fellow, some folks are, I don't get it either

This one's walker percy
"The difference between a non-suicide and an ex-suicide leaving the house for work, at eight o'clock on an ordinary morning:

The non-suicide is a little traveling suck of care, sucking care with him from the past and being sucked toward care in the future. His breath is high in his chest.

The ex-suicide opens his front door, sits down on the steps, and laughs. Since he has the option of being dead, he has nothing to lose by being alive. It is good to be alive. He goes to work because he doesn't have to."

Post an email if you need someone's to talk to about it

Good examples right thurr

There's valid reasons to kill yourself.
If you can't understand why people would kill themselves then you'll say stupid things like this.
He clearly has had such a good life he can't even understand why someone would kill themselves.

Ohh im saving that, thanks for posting.

Im not suicidal or anything so idk if thats what you took from it. I never thought about killing myself and truth be told i am too much of a pussy to do it. I know people that have killed themselves and ive taken interests in these quotes since its foreign to me. All ive ever heard was "Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem" I agreed with this at first but it wasnt enough for me, because some people are miserable their entire lives, so its not temporary.. though the quote still applies to a lot of people regardless.

Why would he defile and insult the human form with this?

Im OP and while i agree with GK Chesterton, i also did acknowledge that sometimes i do understand it -- --

Ive also had a very good life but ive been surrounded by people who have not and by other people who have killed themselves. While its tragic and sad, i do believe that under their circumstance it was excessive. Yes, there is objectivity when determining if other peoples actions are justified. If there werent we would have no fabric to society, whether its under a dictatorship, sharia law, or even no order.

I think he explained himself quite well within the quote. Also this user hit on it pretty well in his own words

It seems to run under the assumption that your personal experience can be made into some sort of sum of everything good in the universe, which is not necessarily true. There may be beautiful flowers and trees in the alps, but if I'm stranded in the Sahara with little hope of escape they're no good to me (to put an example of physical, and not psychological impediments to suffering). Therefore, I may end my own life if the suffering in it is greater in my subjective experience than the joys in said subjective experience.

As for the whole "symbolically killing everyone" thing, it seems like simple rhetoric. I may kill myself to spare my family of shame, and that is not killing them at all nor is it so symbolically in my mind. I may also kill myself because I don't want life for myself anymore, which isn't the same symbolically or otherwise as not wanting life for anyone else. I don't get how the connection from one's own life to everyone's life holds in any way.

I dont think he was directing it at those unfortunate circumstances you mentioned (maybe he was including those as well), but i think the underlining message was that suicide pushes the devaluation of human life. Once you take advantage of not experiencing and not participating in the everyday problems and you decide to just give up, you take away the value of what it is to be human. Its a kind of existentialist dilemma. We exist before we come up with meaning in life. Thats the existential priority. By killing yourself for depression when everything is otherwise well, you spit on anything good that has ever happened, will happen, and any meaning youve made of it. Thats just my opinion though.

It fits him, he's a jolly fellow with an appetite for all good and lovely things
"the grotesque may be employed as a means of presenting the world in a new light without falsifying it"

But most people, even most suicidal people, don't take such deep existential contemplation around suicide. All life doesn't have to be shit for your life to feel like shit, be it because you're in the middle of the Sahara or because you're deficient in serotonin and dopamine and can't derive joy from things. You're taking what is a personal decision to a realm which I don't think most people operate in consciously or subconsciously.

How arrogant of me it would be to think so. I am barely a man, I am a worthless worm, my death does not matter. Or is it because I still must work for the state? Only they can allow me to die, by sending me off to war in some distant land?

Why do people consider military personnel unhonorable? When you look at it through the state, of course all youll see are pawns. The indidivual who joins the military is often not because of patriotism. Sometimes, yes, but mostly its because of selfish reasons, like traveling, free living, pay, status (glorified for being in service), job opportunities afterwards.

Anyways, You could make the argument your suicide prevents generations of others existing. If you dont take that as an answer, you can argue that your death matters to people close to you. You are very well worthless to society if you dont contribute and drown yourself in your pity. That does not mean you are worthless to others. If you do not accept that than it just means that youre stubborn in believing that anybody in this planet matters. A society that follows your virtues would not succeed. Think about that. If everybody thought as you, how would the outcome look?