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Nihilism   /nˈaɪəlˌɪzəm/   Listen
Nihilism

noun
1.
A revolutionary doctrine that advocates destruction of the social system for its own sake.
2.
The delusion that things (or everything, including the self) do not exist; a sense that everything is unreal.  Synonym: nihilistic delusion.
3.
Complete denial of all established authority and institutions.





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"Nihilism" Quotes from Famous Books



... was the work of the secret society known as the Nihilists. To say that their association was secret is equivalent to saying that we know nothing of their purposes other than their name and their deeds indicate. Nihilism signifies nothingness. It comes from the same root as annihilate, and annihilation of despots appears to have been the Nihilist theory of obtaining political rights. This society reached its culmination ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... in mind that this was from the standpoint of a philosophy that was nihilistic, and upon whose shield the denial of life was inscribed. Schopenhauer was right in this: that by means of pity life is denied, and made worthy of denial—pity is the technic of nihilism. Let me repeat: this depressing and contagious instinct stands against all those instincts which work for the preservation and enhancement of life: in the role of protector of the miserable, it is a prime agent in the promotion of decadence—pity persuades to extinction.... Of course, ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... and an outward bearing which in their best representatives has always commanded respect, an integrity that has always preserved its possessors, and in consequence Chinese society as a whole, from moral collapse, from spiritual nihilism, and has thus contributed to the preservation of Chinese cultural values in ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard


Words linked to "Nihilism" :   delusion, school of thought, anarchy, nihilist, ism, philosophical system, nihilistic, lawlessness, doctrine, psychotic belief, philosophy


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