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Man is a tragic animal. Not because of his smallness, but because he is too well endowed. Man has longings and spiritual demands that reality cannot fulfill. We have expectations of a just and moral world. Man requires meaning in a meaningless world.

— Peter Wessel Zapffe The Humorous Pessimist (1990)

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More quotes by Peter Wessel Zapffe

Each new generation asks – What is the meaning of life? A more fertile way of putting the question would be – Why does man need a meaning to life?

The Humorous Pessimist (1990)

To bear children into this world is like carrying wood into a burning house.

No future triumph or metamorphosis can justify the pitiful blighting of a human being against his will.

For me, a desert island is no tragedy, neither is a deserted planet.

The seed of a metaphysical or religious defeat is in us all. For the honest questioner, however, who doesn’t seek refuge in some faith or fantasy, there will never be an answer.

The Humorous Pessimist (1990)

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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

H. P. Lovecraft The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped.

Robert Anton Wilson

Every morning
I shall concern myself anew about the boundary
Between the love-deed-Yes and the power-deed-No
And pressing forward honor reality.

Martin Buber Power and Love (1926)

In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended.

John C. Lilly The Human Biocomputer (1974)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Peter Wessel Zapffe (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.