R. W. K. Paterson

"Political power, social prowess, monetary reward, mere physical well-being: towards these things he is indifferent, and perhaps contemptuous, for they have no part to play in a life well lived but can…"

"The refusal to make the truth of nihilism one’s own and build one’s life entirely within its shadow is indeed a refusal of existentialism itself."

"When those around us perceive the world as if it were a narrow and humdrum shopping precinct, in which the best life possible consists in avoiding all risk and striking bargain after bargain in order …"

"The plebeian … will return to his life of transient surface meanings, still deaf and blind to the deeper symbolisms with which his experience is fraught and to everything that does not thrust itself p…"

"There are two kinds of danger awaiting the individual who stakes his life on the conviction that the symbols of romance and grandeur which summon him express ultimate realities wherein he can truly fi…"

"Talk of the sublime, the exalted, the eternal, the passionate, of glory, challenge, or majesty fills some of us with bewilderment, discomfort, and embarrassment; others with sour resentment or scornfu…"

"Dear, very dear, to himself, he would be hard put to say anything about this self which would explain why he, or anyone, should hold it dear, since he never does, says or thinks anything which might d…"

"The true rebel … may incidentally lend his support to this or that finitely realizable cause, but his unique vocation is to keep the rebellious consciousness alive. In his eyes the crucial feature of …"