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25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 4. Suicide

[attitudes to a person taking their own life]

24 ideas
A suicide embraces death to run away from hardships, rather than because it is a fine deed [Aristotle]
Wise men should partake of life even if they go blind [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius]
It is small-minded to find many good reasons for suicide [Epicurus]
Suicide is reasonable, for one's country or friends, or because of very bad health [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
Stoics say a wise man will commit suicide if he has a good enough reason [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
Suicide may be appropriate even when it is not urgent, if there are few reasons against it [Seneca]
If we control our own death, no one has power over us [Seneca]
Sometimes we have a duty not to commit suicide, for those we love [Seneca]
It is impossible that the necessity of a person's nature should produce a desire for non-existence [Spinoza]
If suicide is wrong because only God disposes of our lives, it must also be wrong to save lives [Hume]
The maxim for suicide is committed to the value of life, and is thus contradictory [Kant]
A permanent natural order could not universalise a rule permitting suicide [Kant]
If suicide was quick and easy, most people would have done it by now [Schopenhauer]
Sometimes it is an error to have been born - but we can rectify it [Nietzsche]
Absolute prohibitions are the essence of ethics, and suicide is the most obvious example [Wittgenstein]
Even if a drowning man is doomed, he should keep swimming to the last [Weil]
No one has ever found a good argument against suicide [Cioran]
Religions see suicide as insubordination [Cioran]
If you have not contemplated suicide, you are a miserable worm [Cioran]
Suicide is pointless, because it always comes too late [Cioran]
It is essential to die unreconciled and not of one's own free will [Camus]
Suicide is ascribed to depression, with the originality of the act of will ignored [Baudrillard]
One test for a worthwhile life is to assess the amount of life for which you would rather be unconscious [Glover]
If suicide is lawful, but assisting suicide is unlawful, powerless people are denied their rights [Grayling]