"Nature knows nothing about right and wrong, good and evil, pleasure and pain; she simply acts. She creates a beautiful woman, and places a cancer on her cheek. She may create an idealist, and kill him with a germ. She creates a fine mind, and then burdens it with a deformed body. And she will create a fine body, apparently for no use whatever. She may destroy the most wonderful life when its work has just commenced. She may scatter tubercular germs broadcast throughout the world. She seemingly works with no method, plan or purpose. She knows no mercy nor goodness. Nothing is so cruel and abandoned as Nature. To call her tender or charitable is a travesty upon words and a stultification of intellect. No one can suggest these obvious facts without being told that he is not competent to judge Nature and the God behind Nature. If we must not judge God as evil, then we cannot judge God as good. In all the other affairs of life, man never hesitates to classify and judge, but when it comes to passing on life, and the responsibility of life, he is told that it must be good, although the opinion beggars reason and intelligence and is a denial of both. Emotionally, I shall no doubt act as others do to the last moment of my existence. With my last breath I shall probably try to draw another, but, intellectually, I am satisfied that life is a serious burden, which no thinking, humane person would wantonly inflict on some one else."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Clarence Darrow, The Story of My Life, 1932
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Antinatalism
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Antinatalism
361 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Antinatalism →
Related Quotes
"Not to be born is undoubtedly the best plan of all. Unfortunately it is within no one's reach."
"When someone (including philosophers) defends the alleged beauty of "having children", they refer to the pleasure of …"
"That faint light in each of us which dates back to before our birth, to before all births, is what must be protected …"
"When every man has realized that his birth is a defeat, existence, endurable at last, will seem like the day after a …"
"To bear children into this world is like carrying wood into a burning house."
"I have said more than once that one can have a post-sexual vision of the world, the most desperate vision that is pos…"
"Because I do not want to commit the crime of giving life to beings who later may be unhappy and curse the moment of t…"
"I was alone in that cemetery overlooking the village when a pregnant woman came in. I left at once, in order not to l…"
"For me, a desert island is no tragedy, neither is a deserted planet."
"How is it that in no epoch of history, in no place on earth, a sect of wise men has been formed with the aim of makin…"