Come here, let me share a bit of wisdom with you.
Have you given much thought to our mortal condition?
Probably not. Why would you? Well, listen.
All mortals owe a debt to death.
There's no one alive
who can say if he will be tomorrow.
Our fate moves invisibly! A mystery.
No one can teach it, no one can grasp it.
Accept this! Cheer up! Have a drink!
But don't forget Aphrodite — that's one sweet goddess.
You can let the rest go. Am I making sense?
I think so. How about a drink.
Put on a garland. I'm sure
the happy splash of wine will cure your mood.
We're all mortal you know. Think mortal.
Because my theory is, there's no such thing as life,
it's just catastrophe.

There are diseases worse, yes, than diseases,
Aches that don't ache even in one's soul
And yet, that are more aching than the others.
There are dreamed anguishes that are more real
Than the ones life brings us, there are sensations
Felt only by imagining
Which are more ours than our life is.
There's so often a thing which, not existing,
Does exist, exists lingeringly
And lingeringly is ours and us.....
Above the cloudy green of the broad river
The white circumflexes of the gulls.....
Above the soul the useless fluttering-
What never was, nor could be, and is everything.

Give me some more wine, because life is nothing.

Give me some more wine, because life is nothing.

Life without absorbing occupation is hell — joy consists in forgetting life.

My life came to a standstill. I could breathe, eat, drink and sleep, and I could not help doing these things; but there was no life, for there were no wishes the fulfilment of which I could consider reasonable. If I desired anything, I knew in advance that whether I satisfied my desire or not, nothing would come of it. Had a fairy come and offered to fulfil my desires I should not have known what to ask. If in moments of intoxication I felt something which, though not a wish, was a habit left by former wishes, in sober moments I knew this to be a delusion and that there was really nothing to wish for. I could not even wish to know the truth, for I guess of what it consisted. The truth was that life is meaningless.

Life is (I think) a blunder and a shame.

I drink out of desperation. Life is too dreary to endure. The misery, loneliness, crampedness — they're heartbreaking.[...] What feelings do you suppose a man has when he realizes that he will never know happiness or glory as long as he lives? Hard work. All that amounts to is food for the wild beasts of hunger.

What foolishness it is to desire more life, after one has tasted
A bit of it and seen the world; for each day, after each endless day,
Piles up ever more misery into a mound. As for pleasures: once we
Have passed youth they vanish away, never again to be seen.
Death is the end of all.
Never to be born is the best thing. To have seen the daylight
And be swept instantly back into dark oblivion comes second.

We live in an age when we have forgotten what life is all about.

Life is a useless passion.

The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow-creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life.

Life is a drink and you get drunk when you're young.

Life itself has become ludicrous.

Life creates itself in delirium and is undone in ennui.