X-Message-Number: 21541 From: Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2003 09:56:16 EST Subject: Unamuno --part1_4a.1ac915cb.2bc04890_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Miguel de Unamuno is not well known in this country, although he was regarded as Spain's greatest living writer in the early 20th century. Following are snippets from his book THE TRAGIC SENSE OF LIFE (1921, English edition Dover 1954). ------------ Knowledge is not for the sake of knowledge, nor truth for the sake of truth--but for the sake of real people. The real starting point of all philosophy is self love, the effort to persist in one's own being. The longing not to die, as Spinoza said, is our essence and the affective basis of all knowledge. If we all believed we could avoid death, we should all be better. "Love thy neighbor as thyself" presupposes that you love yourself. I am given reasons against immortality, but it is not with reasons that the heart is appeased. To live is not my right, but it is my necessity. The age of greatest intellectual grandeur was that of Lucretius--man alone, without gods. In time, all human consciousness will cease to exist--wherefore, then, your consolations? I will not abdicate my life--my life must be wrested from me. Walpole said life is comedy for those who think, and tragedy for those who feel. Even so, better to feel. The supreme human need is the need of not dying. Serenity is not my end, but disquiet and passionate striving. Despair is the master of impossibilities. We need warmth, not light! It is not the night that kills, but the frost. May God deny you peace, but give you glory! --------------------- Robert Ettinger Cryonics Institute Immortalist Society www.cryonics.org --part1_4a.1ac915cb.2bc04890_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21541