Leo Tolstoy Quotes

Science only answers the question, How does it work? Or at most, What's there? Science asks what and how, philosophy asks why, myth and religion ask who. Who's in charge here? Who's the author? That's what we really long to know.

What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To answer this question at all implies a religion.

If there's a reason for the way that life is I'd like to find it. After all, who's life is it?

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.

'Why are we here?' 'What is our purpose? 'Is there an afterlife?' 'Is there a God?' 'Is it all about science?' Those are big questions, and usually, TV is a little scared to go there.

Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery.

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.

Philosophy is an attempt by man to find cause and effect. Religion has the same goal.

I would argue that religion comes from a desire to get to the questions of, 'Where do we come from?' and 'How shall we live?' And I would say I don't need religion to answer those questions.

As a child, I wondered often, 'Why are we? What is the meaning of life?' These questions made me realize that life is what has meaning - not just individual lives, but all of our lives.

The lyrics are a lot about those big questions: why are we here, how did we get here, what's the point, and what's next. When those questions come up with fans, I would absolutely share with them what has helped me and where I stand on what it is that I believe.

There's a reason evolution is a hot-button issue. It's not just a matter of science, either. It's a matter of the big questions in life - why are we here, what is truth, where is our moral basis?

Life, not death, is the great mystery you must confront.

Life is the gift of God, and is divine.

Is death that which gives meaning to life?

The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.

The realization that life is absurdand cannot be an end, but only abeginning. This is a truth nearly allgreat minds have taken as their starting point.

I don't ask myself what did I live for, said Carlene strongly. That is a man's question. I ask whom did I live for.

A new question has arisen in modern man's mind, the question, namely, whether life is worth living...No sensible answer can be given to the question...because the question does not make any sense.

I've been on the planet for 40 years now, and I'm still none the wiser as to what it's all about really. I've never worried about life's big questions. People at my age sit about pondering, 'Why are we here?' The only time I ever asked myself that is when Suzanne booked us a surprise holiday to Lanzarote.

Robin turned and looked straight into her. "What's life for?" "I don't know." "I don't either. But I don't think it's about winning.

Science is meaningless because it gives no answer to our question, the only question important for us: 'What shall we do and how shall we live?'

Religion is a valid inquiry; whether society accepts it or rejects it, it doesn't matter. Man is a religious animal and is going to remain that way. Religion is something natural. To ask from where you come is relevant; to ask, 'Who am I?' is going to remain relevant always. But the modern mind has created a climate of atheism so you cannot ask such questions. If you ask, people laugh. If you talk about such things, people feel bored If you start inquiring in these ways, people think you are slipping out of your sanity. Religion is no longer a welcome inquiry.

Life is a great gift, and as we reach years of discretion, most of us naturally ask ourselves what should be the main object of our existence.

I started asking the big questions that I had asked in college, that my compatriots the Greek philosophers had asked, like 'what is a good life?' Socrates famously said that 'The unexamined life is not worth living.' I started asking these questions from the starting point of 'what is success?'