Man 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.

The seed of a metaphysical or religious defeat is in us all. For the honest questioner, however, who doesn't seek refuge in some faith or fantasy, there will never be an answer.

To bear children into this world is like carrying wood to a burning house.

Man beholds the earth, and it is breathing like a great lung; whenever it exhales, delightful life swarms from all its pores and reaches out toward the sun, but when it inhales, a moan of rupture passes through the multitude, and corpses whip the ground like bouts of hail.

Why does man need a meaning to life?

The immediate facts are what we must relate to. Darkness and light, beginning and end.

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?