Last Man Quotes

“Fukuyama’s thesis that history has climaxed with liberal capitalism may have been widely derided, but it is accepted, even assumed, at the level of the cultural unconscious. It should be remembered, though, that even when Fukuyama advanced it, the idea that history had reached a ‘terminal beach’ was not merely triumphalist. Fukuyama warned that his radiant city would be haunted, but he thought its specters would be Nietzschean rather than Marxian. Some of Nietzsche’s most prescient pages are those in which he describes the ‘oversaturation of an age with history’. ‘It leads an age into a dangerous mood of irony in regard to itself’, he wrote in Untimely Meditations, ‘and subsequently into the even more dangerous mood of cynicism’, in which ‘cosmopolitan fingering’, a detached spectatorialism, replaces engagement and involvement. This is the condition of Nietzsche’s Last Man, who has seen everything, but is decadently enfeebled precisely by this excess of (self) awareness.”
― Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?

“Nietzsche saw in the Protestant ethic, in both its religious and secular (economic) forms, a final protest before the emergence into dominance of the ordered, bourgeois world of the ‘last man’—he who will pay any price in tedium for comfort and the absence of tension.”
― John Carroll, Break-out from the Crystal Palace;: The anarcho-psychological critique; Stirner, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky

“We are the Overcomers, the Overmen, not the Last Men. The Last Men want a petty, trivial, comfortable world without any suffering. Fuck ‘em! The task is not to eliminate suffering, but to sublimate it. All people who accomplish anything great impose tremendous discipline, suffering, and hardship on themselves. They deny themselves an easy, hedonistic life. They train hard, study hard, try hard, make tremendous sacrifices. They’re certainly not in the Last Man game of removing suffering from their life. They don’t want to end suffering. They want to use suffering to develop.”
― David Sinclair, The Wolf Tamers: How They Made the Strong Weak

“See Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last man (London: Penguin, 1993). Note the often-overlooked second part where Fukuyama criticizes the end of history as leading to the last man.”
― Hugo Drochon, Nietzsche's Great Politics

“Until the last man has drawn his last breath, there is always hope.”
― Sophia McMaster, The Last Companion

“Some inventions change or die; even institutions die; but the clock is definite and perpetual. The last man on earth, as he bids farewell to the cold, dead sun, is sure to have a watch in his pocket, so as to know the exact hour of his death.”
― Machado de Assis, Memórias póstumas de Brás Cubas

“The man who loves the rising sun must equally adore the darkest night. How else will the sun rise if not through the darkness? Who would enjoy the calm if they could not also embrace the storm? All greatness is born in the harshest conditions. It’s struggle, not having everything handed to you on a plate, which makes you great. If you’re afraid of struggle, you’re afraid of greatness. The Superman wants to march through hell. The Last Man wants to see only heaven. That’s why the Last Man does nothing of note, while everything done by the Superman is noteworthy. Are the masses taking a note of your life, or is there nothing to note? Most people vanish from their own lives. At the end, they realized they never lived at all. Most people impersonate being alive. It’s not a good impression. They don’t even convince themselves. But you always know when you have encountered one of the congregation of the Chapel of the Serpent. They always leave their mark … their bite.”
― David Sinclair, The Church of the Serpent: The Philosophy of the Snake and Attaining Transcendent Knowledge

“Why was Nietzsche’s “God is dead” speech so refreshing? It’s because the death of the external God would force people to become gods themselves. Nietzsche’s Superman is a God substitute. If you are a Superman then you are becoming God. The Last Man wants none of that. The Last Man always wants an external God. The Last Man always wants someone else running the show, bearing the burden.”
― Rob Armstrong, Children See Dead People: Children's Spooky Powers

“Democracy was never anything but a contingent hodge podge of basis thoughts haphazardly slapped together in the minds of starry-eyed philosophers who infinitely outweighed the value of Mob Man's voice to that of The Genius.”
― Lil Low-Cu$$'t, The Swarm

“Working as the last man on the ground was like shepherding cats through a sandstorm.”
― Jason Fox, Battle Scars: A Story of War and All That Follows By Jason Fox & Break Point: SAS: Who Dares Wins Host's Incredible True Story By Ollie Ollerton 2 Books Collection Set