Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes

Of our relation to all creation we can never know anything whatsoever. All is immensity and chaos. But, since all this knowledge of our limitations cannot possibly be of any value to us, it is better to ignore it in our daily conduct of life.

Self-awareness is a trait that not only makes us human but also paradoxically makes us want to be more than merely human. As I said in my BBC Reith Lectures, “Science tells us we are merely beasts, but we don’t feel like that. We feel like angels trapped inside the bodies of beasts, forever craving transcendence

This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

To be human is to keep rattling the bars of the cage of existence, hollering, 'What's it for?'

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

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

Man has gone long enough, or even too long, without being man enough to face the simple truth that the trouble with man is man.

'Hamlet' is one of the most dangerous things ever set down on paper. All the big, unknowable questions like what it is to be a human being; the difference between sanity and insanity; the meaning of life and death; what's real and not real. All these subjects can literally drive you mad.

Any art worthy of its name should address 'life', 'man', 'nature', 'death' and 'tragedy'.

Man's world is the planet of inexperience.

What, if as said, man is a bubble.

I hate to think life is just facts and laws.

I do have faith. I don't have faith that a God exists, nor do I have faith that one does not; I have absolute faith that I do not know, cannot know, am only human, am an infinitesimal creature packed onto a cramped planet crowded with seven billion bodies, and as many yearning hearts, and as many questioning minds.

If you don't ponder the end of the world on a regular basis, I don't think you're really human.

The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.

There is no doubt: the study of man is just beginning, at the same time that his end is in sight.

I was absolutely blown away when I first talked to Lisa Joy and Jonah Nolan at how ambitious they wanted 'Westworld' to be in looking at the drives that are leading human beings over the cliff of existence.

I'm a Nietzschean scholar. I've read an immense amount about nihilism and existentialism.

Starting with the lyrics, 'Only scared of myself and the truth in the stars/I'm a king, I'm the dirt, God within me shine,' the first half of '6 Weeks' delves into my attempts to balance the notion that I have an existential purpose with the realization that I am nothing against the vastness of the universe.

The meaningless absurdity of life is the only incontestable knowledge accessible to man.

for in the absence of God he had found Man. Man killing man, man helping man, both of them anonymous: the scourge and the blessing.

What is man? He's just a collection of chemicals with delusions of grandeur.

What is a man, if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.

Man cannot live on the human plane, he must be either above or below it.