What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether To answer this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then, you ask, in putting it I answer, the man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life. The World as I See It, 1934.
Albert EinsteinRelated topics
almost altogether answer ask fellow human life man meaning organic putting question religion see sense unfortunate world regardsRelated quotes
We in the Handdara don't want answers. It's hard to avoid them, but we try to.”
"Faxe, I don't think I understand.”
"Well, we come here to the Fastnesses mostly to learn what questions not to ask.”
"But you're the Answerers!”
"You don't see, Genry, why we perfected and practice Foretelling?”
"No-”
"To exhibit the perfect uselessness of knowing the answer to the wrong question.
Ursula K. Le Guin
I once spoke to a human geneticist who declared that the notion of intelligence was quite meaningless, so I tried calling him unintelligent. He was annoyed, and it did not appease him when I went on to ask how he came to attach such a clear meaning to the notion of lack of intelligence. We never spoke again.
Peter Medawar
Nobody likes to see a body, but it's better than seeing a ghost. Bodies just make you doubt the world and the people in it. Ghosts make you doubt everything, and to doubt it in a part of the mind that has no words to answer the question, where the comforting promises you make yourself are neither believed nor even really understood.
Michael Marshall Smith
"What is the meaning of life?" This question has no answer except in the history of how it came to be asked. There is no answer because words have meaning, not life or persons or the universe itself. Our search for certainty rests in our attempts at understanding the history of all individual selves and all civilizations. Beyond that, there is only awe.
Julian Jaynes
A man writes to throw off the poison which he has accumulated because of his false way of life. He is trying to recapture his innocence, yet all he succeeds in doing (by writing) is to inoculate the world with a virus of his disillusionment. No man would set a word down on paper if he had the courage to live out what he believed in.
Henry Miller
