There are more dead people than living. And their numbers are increasing. The living are getting rarer.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the transient nature of life and the inevitability of death.
Eugene Ionesco highlights a profound observation about the human condition, stating that our existence is fleeting, and as time progresses, the number of deceased individuals outnumbers the living. This sentiment evokes contemplation on the value of life, the inevitability of mortality, and encourages a reflection on our legacy and the impact we have while we are alive.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of living in the moment, this quote can emphasize how we should cherish life.
Since the death instinct exists in the heart of everything that lives, since we suffer from trying to repress it, since everything that lives longs for rest, let us unfasten the ties that bind us to life, let us cultivate our death wish, let us develop it, water it like a plant, let it grow unhindered. Suffering and fear are born from the repression of the death wish.
Childhood is the world of miracle and wonder; as if creation rose, bathed in the light, out of the darkness, utterly new and fresh and astonishing. The end of childhood is when things cease to astonish us.
No society has been able to abolish human sadness, no political system can deliver us from the pain of living, from our fear of death, our thirst for the absolute. It is the human condition that directs the social condition, not vice versa.
Drama lies in extreme exaggeration of the feelings, an exaggeration that dislocates flat everyday reality.
Language should almost break up or explode in its fruitless effort to contain so many meanings.
The brightest light, the light of Italy, the purest sky of Scandinavia in the month of June is only a half-light when one compares it to the light of childhood. Even the nights were blue.
To maintain their power, dominant groups create and maintain a popular system of 'commonsense' ideas that support their right to rule. In the United States, hegemonic ideologies concerning race, class, gender, sexuality, and nation are often so pervasive that it is difficult to conceptualize alternatives to them, let alone ways of resisting the social practices that they justify.
No form of liberty is worth a darn [sic] which doesn't give us the right to do wrong now and then.
The thing about Zen is that it pushes contradictions to their ultimate limit where one has to choose between madness and innocence. And Zen. suggests that we may be driving toward one or the other on a cosmic scale. Driving toward them because, one way or the other, as madmen or innocents, we are already there. It might be good to open our eyes and see.
The question is not, "Do you know you are a sinner?" the question is this, "As you have heard me preach the Gospel, has God so worked in your life that the sin you once loved you now hate?"
Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it.
Nothing causes us to so nearly resemble God as the forgiveness of injuries.
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