“Life's big questions are big in the sense that they are momentous. However, contrary to appearances, they are not big in the sense of being unanswerable. It is only that the answers are generally unpalatable. There is no great mystery, but there is plenty of horror.”

Source: The Human Predicament: A Candid Guide to Life's Biggest Questions (2017), Introduction, p. 7

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Life's big questions are big in the sense that they are momentous. However, contrary to appearances, they are not big i…" by David Benatar?
David Benatar photo
David Benatar 13
South African philosopher 1966

Related quotes

Francis Crick photo

“Big questions get big answers.”

Francis Crick (1916–2004) British molecular biologist, biophysicist, neuroscientist; co-discoverer of the structure of DNA

Life Story (1987, BBC)

James Madison photo

“Philosophy is common sense with big words.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)
Stephen Hawking photo

“All my life, I have been fascinated by the big questions that face us, and have tried to find scientific answers to them.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

From the 1997 television program Stephen Hawking's Universe http://www.pbs.org/wnet/hawking/html/home.html
Unsourced variant: All of my life, I have been fascinated by the big questions that face us, and have tried to find scientific answers to them. Perhaps that is why I have sold more books on physics than Madonna has on sex. This quote seems to combine the above sentence from Stephen Hawking's Universe with a statement from the Foreword to The Illustrated Brief History of Time: As Nathan Myhrvold of Microsoft (a former post-doc of mine) remarked: I have sold more books on physics than Madonna has on sex.

Stig Dagerman photo
Marquis de Sade photo
Marilyn Manson photo

“Art is a big question mark.”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor
Freeman Dyson photo

“I am saying to modern scientists and theologians: don't imagine that our latest ideas about the Big Bang or the human genome have solved the mysteries of the universe or the mysteries of life. Here are Bacon's words again: "The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding".”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

Progress In Religion (2000)
Context: I am saying to modern scientists and theologians: don't imagine that our latest ideas about the Big Bang or the human genome have solved the mysteries of the universe or the mysteries of life. Here are Bacon's words again: "The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding". In the last four hundred years, science has fulfilled many of Bacon's dreams, but it still does not come close to capturing the full subtlety of nature.

Tim Buck photo

“Fascist organizations were being generously financed by big business in various parts of the Country”

Tim Buck (1891–1973) Canadian politician

Tim Buck A Conscience for Canada

Ron English photo

“Being a big fish in a small pond is great until you have to poop.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy (2016)

Related topics