Anguish
Anguish is a term used in philosophy, often as a translation from the Latin angst. It is a paramount feature of existentialist philosophy, in which anguish is often understood as the experience of an utterly free being in a world with zero absolutes (existential despair). In the theology of Kierkegaard, it refers to a being with total free will who is in a constant state of spiritual fear that his freedom will lead him to fall short of the standards that God has laid out for him.
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Famous quotes containing the word anguish:
“From the very fountain of enchantment there arises a taste of bitterness to spread anguish amongst the flowers.”
—Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus)
“Have you ever turned toward an intellectual in a time of authentic anguish and encountered his light appraisal, or evasion, of your grief? Or turned to him in a situation of light import only to be met with a heavy, superfluous solemnity?”
—Margaret Anderson (1886–1973)
“There are confessable agonies, sufferings of which one can positively be proud. Of bereavement, of parting, of the sense of sin and the fear of death the poets have eloquently spoken. They command the world’s sympathy. But there are also discreditable anguishes, no less excruciating than the others, but of which the sufferer dare not, cannot speak. The anguish of thwarted desire, for example.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)