Faustian Bargain Quotes

If someone told me that I could live my life again free of depression provided I was willing to give up the gifts depression has given me--the depth of awareness, the expanded consciousness, the increased sensitivity, the awareness of limitation, the tenderness of love, the meaning of friendship, the apreciation of life, the joy of a passionate heart--I would say, 'This is a Faustian bargain! Give me my depressions. Let the darkness descend. But do not take away the gifts that depression, with the help of some unseen hand, has dredged up from the deep ocean of my soul and strewn along the shores of my life. I can endure darkness if I must; but I cannot lie without these gifts. I cannot live without my soul.' (p. 188)

The tragedy is that society (your school, your boss, your government, your family) keeps drumming the genius part out. The problem is that our culture has engaged in a Faustian bargain, in which we trade our genius and artistry for apparent stability.

A dreamer," scorns her mother. "A dreamer," mourns her father. "A dreamer," warns Estele. Still, it does not seem such a bad word..

A boy is born with a broken heart.

They will not remember you, of course. But ideas are so much wilder than memories, so much faster to take root." It will be fifty years before she realizes he is right. Ideas are wilder than memories. And she can plant them, too.

One of the most powerful ways that our shame triggers get reinforced is when we enter into a social contract based on these gender straitjackets. Our relationships are defined by women and men saying, “I’ll play my role, and you play yours.” One of the patterns revealed in the research was how all that role playing becomes almost unbearable around midlife. Men feel increasingly disconnected, and the fear of failure becomes paralyzing. Women are exhausted, and for the first time they begin to clearly see that the expectations are impossible. The accomplishments, accolades, and acquisitions that are a seductive part of living by this contract start to feel like a Faustian bargain.

Psychology’s service to U.S. national security has produced a variant of what the psychiatrist Robert Lifton has called, in his study of Nazi doctors, a “Faustian bargain.” In this case, the price paid has been the American Psychological Association’s collective silence, ethical “numbing,” and, over time, historical amnesia. 3 Indeed, Lifton emphasizes that “the Nazis were not the only ones to involve doctors in evil”; in defense of this argument, he cites the Cold War “role of …American physicians and psychologists employed by the Central Intelligence Agency…for unethical medical and psychological experiments involving drugs and mind manipulation.” 4

I’m missing my baby’s first swim lesson. If I am at my daughter’s debut in her school musical, I am missing Sandra Oh’s last scene ever being filmed at Grey’s Anatomy. If I am succeeding at one, I am inevitably failing at the other. That is the trade-off. That is the Faustian bargain one makes with the devil that comes with being a powerful working woman who is also a powerful mother. You never feel 100 percent okay, you never get your sea legs, you are always a little nauseous. Something is always lost. Something is always missing. And yet. I want my daughters to see me and know me as a woman who works. I want that example set for them.

A success? Selling the most valuable thing in ourselves.

In all those stories about people who sold their souls to the devil, I never quite understood why the devil was the bad guy, or why it was okay to screw him out of his soul. They got what they wanted: fame, money, love, whatever—though usually it turned out not to be what they really wanted or expected. Was that the devil's fault? I never thought so. Like John Wayne said, "Life's tough. It's even tougher when you're stupid.

The problem is that our culture has engaged in a Faustian bargain, in which we trade our genius and artistry for apparent stability.

A sixth sense warned her that she was striking a Faustian bargain. Odd, since she wasn't sure what a Faustian bargain was. But it was something not to be taken lightly. She knew that.

Shonda, how do you do it all? The answer is this: I don't. Whenever you see me somewhere succeeding in one area of my life, that almost certainly means I am failing in another area of my life.... That is the trade-off. That is the Faustian bargain one makes with the devil that comes with being a powerful working woman who is also a powerful mother. You never feel 100 percent okay, you never get your sea legs, you are always a little nauseous.

The tragedy is that society (your school, your boss, your government, your family) keeps drumming the genius part out. The problem is that our culture has engaged in a Faustian bargain, in which we trade our genius and artistry for apparent stability.

Populism is not conservatism, which by definition entails resistance to public whims. Conservatives who seek to use populism for their own ends inevitably make a Faustian bargain. We are now living with the consequences of that bargain in the form of Donald Trump’s presidency.

He in my bosom with malicious zeal 
For that fair image fans a raging fire;
 From craving to enjoyment thus I reel,
 And in enjoyment languish for desire.

... even though many American businesses continue to prosper in China, a growing number of firms have given up hope that the playing field will ever be level. Some have accepted the Faustian bargain of maximizing today’s earnings per share while operating under restrictions that jeopardize their future competitiveness. But that doesn’t mean they’re happy about it.

Living in 21st century civilisation entails a neo-Faustian bargain. In return for your ‘soul’ (or at least your fundamental authenticity, let’s say), you will receive extensive benefits. Immortality isn’t yet available but relative affluence, a well-distracted sense of amortality and longevity are clear benefits. Freud (1908/2001) understood the bargain involved in surrendering thus, repressing the depths of our instincts and giving huge status to the superego. Society will soothe your anxieties if you smile rather than frown, and always reply ‘Fine’ to the meaningless ‘How are you?’ An occasional, darkly leaky ‘Mustn’t grumble’ may be tolerated. Endorse the status quo, have children and don’t talk about suffering and death. Absolutely avoid ‘that odd shit’ spoken by weirdos like Rust Cohle (see Chapter 4). For the superior neo-Faustian package of enhanced benefits, help to boost capitalism with entrepreneurial projects; support (indeed be part of) religion, psychotherapy, the self-help industry and the rhetoric of well-being and flourishing; distance yourself from civilisation’s discontents, especially DRs; do not get visibly ill, old or die, or be very discreet or upbeat about it when it happens. If you ever consider defecting to the DR club, you may rapidly lose all benefits.

at its best science fiction is about us and our Faustian bargain with our big brains, which dragged us out of the trees but may yet drag us into the volcano.

But as the digital revolution has created new forms of communal engagement, it has accelerated a rot within society. Digitalization has decimated local communities, and traditional affiliations have weakened as younger generations have shifted their lives online. Was this a Faustian bargain? We have gotten convenience and efficiency at the cost of losing civic engagement, intimacy, and authenticity. In this we again hear the echo of the poet Oliver Goldsmith: 'Wealth accumulates, and men decay.' Amid such dislocations, people are drawn to fringe online communities--or even reject modernity itself, turning away from liberal democracy, economic growth, and technological progress.

The distinction between sanity and insanity is narrower than the razor’s edge,” Dick self-perceptively wrote, “sharper than a hound’s tooth, more agile than a mule deer.

Gnostics were austere and stoic rejectors of this world and its prince, understanding everyday life to be a Faustian bargain. To eat, to sleep, to work, to procreate, to live, to exist, to be—all of it was to give over a measure of your life to the Demon who had tricked us into worshiping him as the Lord. Our being itself is Faustian.

The doors of heaven and hell are adjacent and identical. —Nikos Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation, of Christ (1952)

Whether or not you sell your soul to Satan or to God, you’ve still sold your soul. The numinous realm, the astral plane, the transcendent dimension—the sacred—is a terrifying kingdom, defined by its difference from everything that is safe and familiar and human.

Come to see the devil in his lair, have you?” he asked. She came closer, her expression intent and oddly fearless. “You’re not the devil. You’re only a man. A very fl-flawed one.” For the first time in days Sebastian felt a faint urge to smile. A flicker of reluctant interest stirred in him. “Just because the tail and horns aren’t visible, child, doesn’t mean you should discount the possibility. The devil comes in many guises.” “Then I’m here to make a Faustian bargain.” Her speech was very slow, as if she had to think over every word before she spoke. “I have a proposition for you, my lord.” And she drew closer to the hearth, emerging from the darkness that surrounded them both. -Sebastian St. Vincent & Evie

Come to see the devil in his lair, have you?" he asked. She came closer, her expression intent and oddly fearless. "You're not the devil. You're only a man. A very f-flawed one." For the first time in days Sebastian felt a faint urge to smile. A flicker of reluctant interest stirred in him. "Just because the tail and horns aren't visible, child, doesn't mean you should discount the possibility. The devil comes in many guises." "Then I'm here to make a Faustian bargain." Her speech was very slow, as if she had to think over every word before she spoke. "I have a proposition for you, my lord." And she drew closer to the hearth, emerging from the darkness that surrounded them both.

Faust's story is ultimately about the burdens of artifice, but the curse is that this living man accrued so many stories about himself than he transition into legend, and in the process erased the particulars of his soul.

Unfortunately most people do not use anxiety in this constructive manner. Instead many of us do all we can to flee from our anxiety. Some of us will go as far as to delude ourselves with the claim that we don’t even desire a greater life and that comfort and security are best in these uncertain times. But what is overlooked at the moment of such a decision is the totality of what has been chosen – for in refusing to move into the possibilities that make us anxious, we have made a Faustian bargain. We gain some temporary comfort in avoiding the challenge and we remove the chance for failure that comes with each step on the path of self-realization, but we do so at a great cost. For these trivial gains pale in comparison to the suffering we set ourselves up for when we refuse a whole-hearted participation in the process of our creation.

Have you heard of the Faustian Bargain? It means that the top corporate money-makers push for more people, production, consumption and profits to fund their lavish lifestyles today—with no concern for the future. Yet, the future gallops toward humanity at breakneck speed.

We must be mindful of the proper role of government. The framers didn’t idealize the state but believed the government’s purpose is to protect its citizens from domestic and foreign threats, to enforce the rule of law, and to preserve order to maximize citizens’ freedoms. They cherished liberty and considered it a virtuous end in itself. Today, we have lost sight of the value of liberty, as we have increasingly traded it for the illusory promise of economic security. As history has consistently shown, when you engage in this Faustian bargain you end up losing both freedom and security.

Some have accepted the Faustian bargain of maximizing today’s earnings per share while operating under restrictions that jeopardize their future competitiveness. But that doesn’t mean they’re happy about it.

In an essay summarizing the results of this research, Baumeister captured what I am trying to convey about the purpose of life, the laws of nature, and the cosmos as it relates to finding meaning, particularly in the context of our search for immortality, the afterlife, and utopia: Meaning is a powerful tool in human life. To understand what that tool is used for, it helps to appreciate something else about life as a process of ongoing change. A living thing might always be in flux, but life cannot be at peace with endless change. Living things yearn for stability, seeking to establish harmonious relationships with their environment. They want to know how to get food, water, shelter and the like. They find or create places where they can rest and be safe … Life, in other words, is change accompanied by a constant striving to slow or stop the process of change, which leads ultimately to death. If only change could stop, especially at some perfect point: that was the theme of the profound story of Faust’s bet with the devil. Faust lost his soul because he could not resist the wish that a wonderful moment would last forever. Such dreams are futile. Life cannot stop changing until it ends.14 That a meaningful, purposeful life comes from struggle and challenge against the vicissitudes of nature more than it does a homeostatic balance of extropic pushback against entropy reinforces the point that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is the First Law of Life. We must act in the world. The thermostat is always being adjusted, balance sought but never achieved. There is no Faustian bargain to be made in life. We may strive for immortality while never reaching it, as we may seek utopian bliss while never finding it, for it is the striving and the seeking that matter, not the attainment of the unattainable. We are volitional beings, so the choice to act is ours, and our sense of purpose is defined by reaching for the upper limits of our natural abilities and learned skills, and by facing challenges with courage and conviction.

This is the story of a failed Faustian bargain, yet a Faustian bargain all the same. What a bizarre story then, the tale of the Devil commanding God to bow down. What exactly does it mean for the mere creature to entice the Creator to transgress?

Only the pure spiritual rebellion of a Christ is capable of true subversion against the princes of this world, and only He was truly capable of accomplishing it.

As posited by the Grand Inquisitor, Christ came not as a representative of organized religion, but as something transcendent and anarchic, and for most people the condition of existing as a naked soul is too much to bear.

Satan’s system can be described in a multitude of ways, but for the past three centuries his hand has largely been an invisible one, operating through industry and technology, markets and capitalism

The God of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Gnostics maintained, was really the Devil.

Irenaeus dismisses the faith of Simon by saying that the Magus had supposed that the “apostles themselves performed their curse by the art of magic, and not by the power of God,” but the line separating magic from religion is porous.

A transmutation of flesh into words, of matter into ideas, of man into metaphor, but nonetheless an ever-shifting symbol,

Dido, the Queen of Carthage, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second, the two parts of Tamburlaine,

The difference between “can” and “will” is massive; religious wars have been fought on that difference. The replacement of this one word shifts the entire theological orientation of Dr. Faustus.

Satan’s system can be described in a multitude of ways, but for the past three centuries his hand has largely been an invisible one, operating through industry and technology, markets and capitalism.

What else is a woman but a foe to friendship, an inescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic danger, a delectable detriment, an evil of nature, painted with fair colors,

but they also represent the irrationalism of the witch-hunter, ironically willing to commit gross evil in a battle to eliminate evil.

The states of possession correspond to our neuroses,” wrote Haizmann’s most famous psychoanalyst, none other than Sigmund Freud,