I am dead because I have no desire, I have no desire because I think I possess, I think I possess because I do not try to give; Trying to give, I see… - René Daumal

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I am dead because I have no desire,
I have no desire because I think I possess,
I think I possess because I do not try to give;
Trying to give, I see that I have nothing,
Seeing that I have nothing, I try to give myself,
Trying to give myself, I see that I am nothing,
Seeing that I am nothing, I desire to become,
Desiring to become, I live.

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About René Daumal

René Daumal (March 16, 1908 – May 21, 1944) was a French writer, philosopher and poet.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Pen Names: Mouchamiel Nathaniel Oncle Nathaniel

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Additional quotes by René Daumal

"In the evenings in bed, with the light out, I tried to picture death, the “most nothing of all.” In imagination I suppressed all the circumstances of my life and I felt gripped in ever tighter circles of panic. There was no longer any “I.” What is it after all, “I”? ...Then one night, a marvelous idea came to me: Instead of just submitting to this panic, I would try to observe it, to see where it is, what it is. I perceived then that it was
connected to a contraction in my stomach, a little under my ribs, and also in my throat...I forced myself to unclench, to relax my stomach. The panic disappeared ... when I tried again to think about death, instead of being gripped by the claws of panic I was filled by an entirely new feeling, whose name I did not know, something between mystery and hope."
-Mount Analogue, Rene Daumal

Eternity He who binds himself to a joy Does the winged life destroy But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity’s sun rise — WILLIAM BLAKE

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The angst of paramnesia — the sense of “deja vu” — is not purely and simply erased in poetic feeling; it is overcome by a contact made by consciousness with the universal, it becomes the feeling of a reminiscence of something that has existed for all eternity, that the poet has not created, but unveiled, and that we recognize immediately.

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