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Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth which make it sometimes a thousandfold more hideous. Science, already oppressive with its shocking revelations, will perhaps be the ultimate exterminator of our human species - if separate species we be - for its reserve of unguessed horrors could never be borne by mortal brains if loosed upon the world.

H. P. Lovecraft#9

HorrorCosmic horrorPhilosophyScienceExistential

About this quote

What does it mean?
Life is terrible, and hidden truths make it worse. Science might reveal horrors too great for humans to survive.
In plain terms
Knowledge can make life seem even more terrible.
What can you take from it?
Some truths are too dangerous to know.

Where it applies

  • philosophical debate
  • existential crisis
  • sci-fi writing

Putting it to work

  • analyze horror tropes
  • discuss scientific ethics

Questions to consider

  • Is ignorance better than painful truth?
  • What if humanity cannot handle reality?

Another view

The quote assumes science is inherently destructive without nuance.

More from H. P. Lovecraft

  1. Sometimes I believe that this less material life is our truer life, and that our vain presence on the terraqueous globe is itself the secondary or merely virtu…

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  2. It is only the inferior thinker who hastens to explain the singular and the complex by the primitive shortcut of supernaturalism.

    Permalink to quote #10
  3. My opinion of my whole experience varies from time to time. In broad daylight, and at most seasons I am apt to think the greater part of it a mere dream; but s…

    Permalink to quote #7

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