Each new generation asks – What is the meaning of life? A more fertile way of putting the question would be – Why does man need a meaning to life?
Peter Wessel ZapffeThe more a human being in his worldview approaches the goal, the hegemony of love in a moral universe, the more has he become slipshod in the light of intellectual honesty.
Peter Wessel ZapffeThe immediate facts are what we must relate to. Darkness and light, beginning and end.
Peter Wessel ZapffeMan is a tragic animal. Not because of his smallness, but because he is too well endowed. Man has longings and spiritual demands that reality cannot fulfill. We have expectations of a just and moral world. Man requires meaning in a meaningless world.
Peter Wessel ZapffeThe tragedy of a species becoming unfit for life by over-evolving one ability is not confined to humankind. Thus it is thought, for instance, that certain deer in paleontological times succumbed as they acquired overly-heavy horns. The mutations must be considered blind, they work, are thrown forth, without any contact of interest with their environment. In depressive states, the mind may be seen in the image of such an antler, in all its fantastic splendour pinning its bearer to the ground.
Peter Wessel Zapffe