„All morning, I did nothing but repeat: “Man is an abyss, man is an abyss.” – I could not, alas, find anything better.“

— Emil M. Cioran
„Man is a rope, tied between beast and Superman--a rope over an abyss.“
— Friedrich Nietzsche
„Voluptuaries, consumed by their senses, always begin by flinging themselves with a great display of frenzy into an abyss. But they survive, they come to the surface again. And they develop a routine of the abyss: “It’s four o’clock … At five I have my abyss.”“
— Colette
„Man is something that shall be overcome. Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman - a rope over an abyss. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end.“
— Friedrich Nietzsche
„When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you.“
— Friedrich Nietzsche
„“If there was anything, anything more at all, after this crazy mix-up we call living, I could feel that there might be some point to the whole frantic business, even if I did not know and could not know the full answer while I was alive.”“And suppose there was not? Suppose that when a man’s body disintegrates, he himself disappears absolutely. I’m bound to say I find it a probable hypothesis.”“Well— It wouldn’t be cheerful knowledge, but it would be better than not knowing. You could plan your life rationally, at least. A man might even be able to get a certain amount of satisfaction in planning things better for the future, after he’s gone. A vicarious pleasure in the anticipation.”“
— Robert A. Heinlein
„I could not help feeling that they were evil things -- mountains of madness whose farther slopes looked out over some accursed ultimate abyss.“
— H.P. Lovecraft
„We come from a dark abyss, we end in a dark abyss, and we call the luminous interval life.“
— Nikos Kazantzakis