If the denial of death is self-hatred, as it is to deny our freedom and live in fear of death (which is to say, to live in a form of bondage), then the acceptance and affirmation of death is indeed a form of self-love. But I'd want to make a distinction between a form of self-love which is essential to what it means to be human, and a narcissism of self-regard, like Rousseau's distinction between amour de soi and amour propre, self-love and pride.

It is so ridiculous to limit oneself to one version of the truth.

The philosopher is someone who doesn't know, but who wants to find out.

In relation to the question of hope, I think the only hope we have is hope against hope. We hope for a better world. But of course we can do better than just hope.

In the US, what passes for Christianity - and it is, to say the least, a highly perverse, possessive individualist and capitalist version of what I would see as Christ's messianic ethical communism, to say the least - is a new civil religion, a civil religion of freedom.

Now, if laughter is proper to the human being, then the human being who does not laugh invites the charge of inhumanity, or at least makes us somewhat suspicious.

Philosophy teaches us to look at the world again. It brings out at a theoretical level what all plain, common, ordinary people, in a sense, know already.