James Joyce — Quote from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
“Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.”
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)
Concepts: praxis, authenticity, freedom
Resonant Quotes
- “With word and deed we insert ourselves into the human world, and this inserti...” — Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition These quotes are philosophically kindred in their understanding of human existence as perpetual self-creation—Joyce's...
- “The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the ver...” — Erich Fromm, Man for Himself Joyce's embrace of experience's reality echoes Fromm's insight that meaning emerges through engaging uncertainty rath...
- “Existence precedes essence. Man first of all exists, encounters himself, surg...” — Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism Both celebrate the primacy of lived encounter over predetermined meaning, with Sartre's philosophical principle findi...
- “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex Both quotes articulate the fundamental insight that identity is forged through conscious engagement with existence ra...
- “The fact that man is capable of action means that the unexpected can be expec...” — Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition Both authors celebrate human capacity to create unprecedented meaning through action—Joyce's forging of 'uncreated co...
- “We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are — that...” — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness Both confront the paradox of human agency—Joyce's embrace of experience mirrors Sartre's insight that we must create ...
- “Do it or do not do it — you will regret both.” — Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or Joyce's ecstatic embrace of experience's reality meets Kierkegaard's paradox of inevitable regret, both capturing the...
- “Anxiety is not something we have but something we are. It is our state of bei...” — Rollo May, The Meaning of Anxiety Joyce's exuberant embrace of existence as creative forge directly confronts May's recognition that our being-in-the-w...