Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

Whence come I and whither go I? That is the great unfathomable question, the same for every one of us. Science has no answer to it.

Life belongs to man, but the meaning of life is beyond him.

Leonard asks me if there's anything I need to know before he dies, I think about it for a minute, turn to him, say what's the meaning of life, Leonard? He laughs, says that's an easy one, my son, it's whatever you want it to be.

Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human.

As soon as man does not take his existence for granted, but beholds it as something unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.

I was looking for what the meaning of life was.

Everything has been figured out, except how to live.

Whenever you're talking about meaning, basically... I think a lot of the human experience has to do with trying to understand what things mean, and there's not really any tools to do that unless you're thinking about it in a more spiritual or philosophical realm.

Human life is beyond comprehension.

Whether man is a product of evolution or is 'created' becomes the question, 'Who is man? Is he part of the world or something different from it?'

The question any novel is really trying to answer is, Is life worth living?

One cannot ignore half of life for the purposes of science, and then claim that the results of science give a full and adequate picture of the meaning of life. All discussions of 'life' which begin with a description of man's place on a speck of matter in space, in an endless evolutionary scale, are bound to be half-measures, because they leave out most of the experiences which are important to use as human beings.

Paul Gauguin asked, "Whence do we come? What are we? Where are we going?" Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I came from my room, I'm a kid with big plans, and I'm going outside! See ya later!.. Say, who the heck is Paul Gauguin anyway?

Our destiny can be examined, but it cannot be justified or totally explained. We are simply here.

It was the ghost of rationality itself ... This is the ghost of normal everyday assumptions which declares that the ultimate purpose of life, which is to keep alive, is impossible, but that this is the ultimate purpose of life anyway, so that great minds struggle to cure diseases so that people may live longer, but only madmen ask why. One lives longer in order that he may live longer. There is no other purpose. That is what the ghost says.

I'm simply a nonbeliever and have been forever. ... I'm interested in saying, 'Let us discuss the existential question. We are all going to die, that is the end of all consciousness. There is no afterlife. There is no God. Now what do we do.' That's the point where it starts getting interesting to me.

The search for the purpose of life has puzzled people for thousands of years. That’s because we typically begin at the wrong starting point—ourselves. We ask self-centered questions like What do I want to be? What should I do with my life? What are my goals, my ambitions, my dreams for my future? But focusing on ourselves will never reveal our life’s purpose.

A new question has arisen in modern man's mind, the question, namely, whether life is worth living...No sensible answer can be given to the question...because the question does not make any sense.

How can I come from a nation? How can a human being come from a concept?

I've been on the planet for 40 years now, and I'm still none the wiser as to what it's all about really. I've never worried about life's big questions. People at my age sit about pondering, 'Why are we here?' The only time I ever asked myself that is when Suzanne booked us a surprise holiday to Lanzarote.

The most important question a human being has to face... What is it? The question, Why are we here?

The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of his life.

Being or nothing, that is the question. Ascending, descending, coming, going, a man does so much that in the end he disappears.

DNA tells you all the secrets of life,’ he used to say. Except for one—how to live it.