MEANINGS
OF LIFE
ESSAYS & QUOTATIONS
Insignificant mortals, who are as leaves are,
and now flourish
and grow warm with life,
and feed on what the ground gives,
but
then again fade away and are dead.
Homer, Century IX b.C.
What's the significance of
life? Who are we?
Is
human life just a dream, from which we never really awake, as
some great thinkers claim? Are we submerged by our feelings, by
our loves and hates, by our ideas of good, bad, beautiful,
awful? Are we incapable of knowing beyond those ideas and
feelings?
Listen to Shakespeare and Joseph Conrad:
We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep…
William Shakespeare,
The Tempest (Folger Shakespeare Library)
A man that is born falls into a
dream like a man who falls into the sea.
Joseph Conrad,
Lord Jim (Penguin Classics)
Is the reality we know a
reality imposed to us by nature? Is the reality and the meaning
of life a creation of men, such as music, or love or colors
(science tells us that there isn't such things as music, harmony
or colors in the physic world. Just traveling molecules:
«There is not, external to us, hot or cold, but
only different velocities of molecules; there aren’t sounds,
callings, harmonies, but just variations in the pressure of the
air; there aren’t colours, or light, just electro-magnetic
waves», said H. Von Foerster.).
Are we - and all living beings - just «survival machines,
blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as
genes»,
as Richard
Dawkins states? Are we incapable of knowing beyond the frames
imposed to us by nature?
Is there any significance for life in a Universe of billions of
stars that ignore us?
Is there any significance for life in an Universe whose
dimensions and nature overcome
our understanding?
Listen to the words of Pascal, in the seventeenth century:
«When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in
the eternity that lies before and after it, when I consider the
little space I fill and I see, engulfed in the infinite
immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant, and which know me
not, I rest frightened, and astonished, for there is no reason
why I should be here rather than there. Why now rather than
then? Who has put me here? By whose order and direction have
this place and time have been ascribed to me?»
Pensees (Penguin Classics)
This site is about these themes, and the thoughts they create.
Love and cruelty on our lives
Love
gives meaning to our lives – as do friendship, or art or faith in
God. These are factors of true happiness, of inner peace, of
feelings of harmony, allowing meaning to our existence.
But there is the other side. There is the cruelty of life, the
pain, the evil, not to talk of death. They are the hidden tigers,
ambushed and ready to attack the imprudent, to use an image present
in the Buddhist Scriptures.
Is between these pendulums - the positive, the one that gives
happiness and meaning, and the negative - that our lives are lived.
And when we meditate about all that, we arrive at a diverse and
disagreeing set of thoughts about the meaning and purpose of life.
This site is also about these themes and thoughts…
Poetic reflexions about the brevity of our lives
Insignificant mortals, who are as leaves are, and now flourish
and grow warm with life, and feed on what the ground gives, but
then again fade away and are dead.
Homer, Century IX b.C., Greek poet,
The Iliad (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
To see more:
Life is too Short
Speculations on our place on the Universe
When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in
the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill,
and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces
of which I am ignorant, and which know me not, I am frightened,
and am astonished at being here rather than there; for there is
no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then.
Who has put me here? By whose order and direction have this
place and time been alloted to me?
B. Pascal, 1623-1662, French philosopher, physic and
mathematician, Pensees (Penguin Classics)
To see more:
Why are we here? Why was
I born? Man
and the Universe
Speculations on the purpose and meaning of life
Why
is there something rather than nothing? We do not know. We will
never know. Why? To what purpose? We do not know whether there
is a purpose. But if it is true that nothing is born of nothing,
the very existence of something – the world, the universe –
would seem to imply that there has always been something: that
being is eternal, uncreated, perhaps creator, and this is what
some people call God.
André Comte-Sponville, French philosopher, The Little Book of
Philosophy
What is the purpose of life? I believe that the purpose of life
is to be happy.
Dalai Lama, Tibetan political and spiritual leader, Voices from
the Heart;
The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living
To see more:
Is life meaningful?
Science and meaning
Thoughts about love and friendship in our lives
At our mother breast, we tasted not only milk but also love –
just enough love to know that it was the only thing that could
ever satisfy us and that we will miss it forever.
Compte-Sponville, French philosopher,
A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues: The Uses of Philosophy in Everyday Life
To see more:
Life and Friendship
Life and Love
Philosophy of life thoughts
Therefore don't be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will be
anxious for itself. Each day's own evil is sufficient.
Bible, Matthew, 6:34
To see more:
Philosophies of life
Poems about life
Sarcastic and well humoured thoughts
I
see the better, and approve. But I follow the worst.
Ovidius, 43-17 a.C, roman writer,
Metamorphoses (Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana)
To see more:
Quiz: Thoughts on the Significance of Life
Humour about life and life meaning
Thoughts
connected to science
We are survival machines - robot vehicles blindly programmed to
preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth
which still fills me with astonishment.
Richard Dawkins, English biologist,
The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Author
To see more:
Science and meaning of life
Man and the Universe
Thoughts about the importance of wisdom
The wise man has
the sun and the moon by his side. He grasps the universe under
the arm. He blends everything into a harmonious whole, cast
aside whatever is confused
or obscured, and regards the humble and the honourable.
Tchuang-Tseu, Chinese philosopher, III b. C., Book of
Tchuang-Tseu
To see more:
Philosophies of life
Happiness
Thoughts about the cruelty of life, pain and death
Nature separates beings, after having surrounded them by love.
It divides them, and demands that they still love each other.
G. Leopardi, 1798-1837, Italian writer, Poésis, Le Coucher de la
Lune
To see more:
Life is Pain
Death
Life after Death
Quotes about life - Existential Thought
Thoughts about what we are in the Cosmos
We, sons of the water, earth and sun, are no more than small
straw, foetus of the cosmic diaspora, scraps of solar existence,
insignificant sprouts of the earth’s existence.
E. Morin, French philosopher and sociologist, Method V
To see more:
Man and the Universe
Science and meaning of life
Thoughts about who we are
However sage anyone is, he is, after all, but a man.
Montaigne, 1533-1592, French writer,
Montaigne: Essays
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Human beings and human condition
Positive and negative thoughts about the meaning of life
There may be trouble ahead,
But while there’s moonlight and music and love and romance,
Let’s face the music and dance.
Irving Berlin, 1888-1989, American songwriter, Follow the Fleet
To see more:
Philosophies of life
Happiness
Life is short
Life is pain
Life is a dream
Humour about life
Life quotes - Existential
thought
Thoughts about the illusion present on our lives
Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?
Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1802-1890, English poet, The Higher
Pantheism;
Tennyson: Poems (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets)
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Life is dream
Thoughts about old age and youth
There will be a day when you, that now are escaping from love,
will see yourself old and deserted, condemned to drag through
the nights alone, in your frozen bedstead. Because of you will
not anymore grow nocturnal disputes, wishing to force your door,
nor will you have scattered roses, by morning, at your
threshold.
Ovidius, 43-17 a.C, roman writer,
The Love Books of Ovid Being the Amores, Ars Amatoria, Remedia Amoris And Medicamina Faciei Femineae of Publius Ovidius Naso
To see more:
The life best years
Thoughts about death
Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward, and the spirit
of the animal goes downward to the earth?
Bible, Ecclesiastes, 3:21
To see more:
Death
Life after Death
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