“To procreate is thus to engage in a kind of Russian roulette, but one in which the "gun" is aimed not at oneself but instead at one's offspring. You trigger a new life and thereby subject that new life to the risk of unspeakable suffering.”
Source: Debating Procreation: Is It Wrong To Reproduce? (2015), p. 65
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David Benatar13
South African philosopher 1966Related quotes
Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology
Other
Pete Doherty (1979) English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist
Breck Road Lover
Lyrics and poetry
Jean Paul Sartre book Being and Nothingness
Source: Being and Nothingness (1943), p. 237, 1998 edition
Leon Trotsky book Literature and Revolution
Literature and Revolution (1924), edited by William Keach (2005), Ch. 4 : Futurism, p. 120
Variants:
Art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it.
Remarks apparently derived from Trotsky's observations, or those he implies preceded his own, this is attributed to Bertolt Brecht in Paulo Freire : A Critical Encounter (1993) by Peter McLaren and Peter Leonard, p. 80, and to Vladimir Mayakovsky in The Political Psyche (1993) by Andrew Samuels, p. 9
Art is not a mirror held up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it.
Context: Art, it is said, is not a mirror, but a hammer: it does not reflect, it shapes. But at present even the handling of a hammer is taught with the help of a mirror, a sensitive film that records all the movements. Photography and motion-picture photography, owing to their passive accuracy of depiction, are becoming important educational instruments in the field of labor. If one cannot get along without a mirror, even in shaving oneself, how can one reconstruct oneself or one's life, without seeing oneself in the "mirror" of literature? Of course no one speaks about an exact mirror. No one even thinks of asking the new literature to have mirror-like impassivity. The deeper literature is, and the more it is imbued with the desire to shape life, the more significantly and dynamically it will be able to "picture" life.
“If you don't take risks in life, you'll never see anything new.”
Blake Lewis (1981) American musician
Commenting on his take of You Give Love a Bad Name by Bon Jovi in the Bon Jovi-themed week in his pre-performance clip on May 1, 2007.
Attributed, On American Idol
“Please forgive me," Pleasant said, then aimed the gun at the girl and pulled the trigger.”
Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer
Source: Playing with Fire
Asger Jorn (1914–1973) Danish artist
Quote by Jorn, after Egill Jacobson's exhibition in Kunstforeningen (1945)
1940 - 1948, Various sources
Morris Raphael Cohen (1880–1947) American philosopher
Source: The Faith of a Liberal', (1946), p. 438