Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

Every kid goes to school full of questions about meaning. You know, 'What's my place in the universe? What does it mean to be a human being? What are human beings?' Existing courses cannot help you answer those questions. They can't even help you ask them.

As Socrates I believe said the unexamined life is not worth living. I believe that's true. I do believe that.

Mann was profoundly influenced by two philosophers, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, who returned to the most ancient of all philosophical questions - "How to live?" - and whose writings offered novel perspectives for considering that question (much more perspective-offering than rigorous argument!)

The real question is what to live for. And I can't answer it. Except another one of your records. And another chance for me to write. Art for art's sake, corny as that sounds.

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

Who am I, why am I here? Forget the question, someone give me another beer.

If life is so meaningless, then why are we always bringing it up?

It seems that it is impossible to live without discovering the purpose of your life. And the first thing which a person should do is to understand the meaning of life. But the majority of people who consider themselves to be educated are proud that they have reached such great height that they cease to care about the meaning of existence.

It is good a philosopher should remind himself, now and then, that he is a particle pontificating on infinity.

If I had to summarize, most broadly, my concerns as a writer, I'd say the question 'How then must we live?' is at the heart of it, for me.

Ethical and questions of philosophy interest me a great deal.

The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live - moreover, the only one.

Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.

The ancient Greeks were the first ones to say an unexamined life is not worth living. They don't tell you of course what we found out, an examined life not that fascinating either.

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

The whole of science, and one is tempted to think the whole of the life of any thinking man, is trying to come to terms with the relationship between yourself and the natural world. Why are you here, and how do you fit in, and what's it all about.

The meaning of life is life.

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked.

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

Philosophy, most broadly viewed, is the critical survey of existence from the standpoint of value.

I was looking for what the meaning of life was.

Without philosophy man cannot know what he makes; without religion he cannot know why.

Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.

If you cannot render me a reason how I came hither, and what I am, I must go to those who will render me one. And if that craving be not satisfied by a rational theory of life, it will demand satisfaction from some magical theory;

Quite early on, and certainly since I started writing, I found that philosophical questions occupied me more than any other kind. I hadn't really thought of them as being philosophical questions, but one rapidly comes to an understanding that philosophy's only really about two questions: 'What is true?' and 'What is good?'