Literary notes about Nonentity (AI summary)
The term “nonentity” has been wielded by writers and philosophers alike as a multifaceted symbol that ranges from a metaphysical void to a marker of social insignificance. In the hands of thinkers such as Nietzsche and Santayana, nonentity emerges as a philosophical critique—a representation of the nothingness that lurks behind human ideals and the erosion of life’s intrinsic values ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]). At the same time, novelists and chroniclers use the term to denote characters or institutions rendered negligible or devoid of agency, as seen in the portrayal of insubstantial figures in works by Conrad, Dostoyevsky, and Doyle ([9], [10], [11], [12], [13]). Additionally, historians and cultural commentators have deployed “nonentity” to critique social hierarchies and the reduction of certain roles or identities to triviality ([14], [15], [16], [17]), thereby revealing its enduring capacity to challenge both the metaphysical and the mundane.
- A road to nonentity is the desideratum, hence all emotional impulses are regarded with horror.
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II by Nietzsche - 43 When the centre of gravity of life is laid, not in life, but in a beyond— in nonentity, —life is utterly robbed of its balance.
— from The Twilight of the Idols; or, How to Philosophize with the Hammer. The Antichrist by Nietzsche - If a philosopher could be a nihilist, he would be one; for he finds only nonentity behind all human ideals.
— from The Twilight of the Idols; or, How to Philosophize with the Hammer. The Antichrist by Nietzsche - The same applies to "Nihilism" (the penetrating feeling of nonentity).
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Nietzsche - The logical denial of the world and Nihilism is a consequence of the fact that we must oppose nonentity with Being, and that Becoming is denied.
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Nietzsche - The will to nonentity has prevailed over the will to life !
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II by Nietzsche - Truth has already been turned topsy-turvy, when the conscious advocate of nonentity and of denial passes as the representative of "truth."
— from The Twilight of the Idols; or, How to Philosophize with the Hammer. The Antichrist by Nietzsche - The yearning for nonentity is the denial of tragic wisdom, its opposite!
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Nietzsche - “Intellectually a nonentity,” Ossipon pronounced aloud, abandoning suddenly the inward contemplation of Mrs Verloc’s bereaved person and business.
— from The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad - He clearly counted the latter as a nonentity.
— from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - That is, I mean to say, when I left him in Petersburg, I … in short, I looked on him as a nonentity, quelque chose dans ce genre.
— from The possessed : by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - She was a nonentity.
— from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - “It is not often one can meet with such a nonentity.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - Intermediate is Anglomaniac Constitutionalism, or Two-Chamber Royalism; with its Mouniers, its Lallys,—fast verging towards nonentity.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle - I allude to the increasing curse of Mormonism, a consequence of woman's legalized inferiority or nonentity.
— from History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I - This was a timely protest against the whole idea of the old Blackstone code, which made woman a nonentity in marriage.
— from History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I - That there is no entity [521] contrary to the divine, because nonentity seems to be that which is wholly opposite to Him who supremely and always is.
— from The City of God, Volume I by Bishop of Hippo Saint Augustine
