And killing time is perhaps the essence of comedy, just as the essence of tragedy is killing eternity.

Unamuno contrasts two ways humans confront mortality. Comedy, in this view, is a strategy for “killing time”: it distracts, defers seriousness, and makes the finite span of life feel lighter by turning it into play. Tragedy, by contrast, grapples with what outlasts the individual—fate, meaning, the afterlife, or the longing for permanence—so it attempts to “kill eternity,” i.e., to silence the terrifying pressure of the infinite by giving it form through suffering and catharsis. The aphorism suggests that genres are not merely artistic categories but existential attitudes: laughter manages the passing hours, while tragedy stages a confrontation with the unbearable scale of the eternal.