"We did not make ourselves, nor did we fashion a world that could not work without pain, and great pain at that, with a little pleasure, very little, to string us along--a world where all organisms are inexorably pushed by pain throughout their lives to do that which will improve their chances to survive and create more of themselves. Left unchecked, this process will last as long as a single cell remains palpitating in this cesspool of the solar system, this toilet of the galaxy. So why not lend a hand in nature's suicide? For want of a deity that could be held to account for a world in which there is terrible pain, let nature take the blame for our troubles. We did not create an environment uncongenial to our species, nature did. One would think that nature was trying to kill us off, or get us to suicide ourselves once the blunder of consciousness came upon us. What was nature thinking? We tried to anthropomorphize it, to romanticize it, to let it into our hearts. But nature kept its distance, leaving us to our own devices. So be it. Survival is a two-way street. Once we settle ourselves off-world, we can blow up this planet from outer space. It's the only way to be sure its stench will not follow us. Let it save itself if it can--the condemned are known for the acrobatics they will execute to wriggle out of their sentences. But if it cannot destroy what it has made, and what could possibly unmake it, then may it perish along with every other living thing it has introduced to pain."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
pp. 79-80
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Ligotti
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Thomas Ligotti
52 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Thomas Ligotti →
Related Quotes
"'For as long as I can remember,' I said, continuing to speak to the figure standing in the archway, 'I have had an in…"
"I know in a way I never knew before that there is nowhere for me to go, nothing for me to do, and no one for me to kn…"
"What makes a nightmare nightmarish is the sense that something is happening that should not be. While nightmares are …"
"To give a relatively common example, we might consider the plot of a traffic accident, an event that is commonly expe…"
"But we isolate the nightmare by calling it imaginary and denying it a place in our real life; we anchor ourselves in …"
"Nothing belongs to us. Everything is something that is rented out. Our very heads are filled with rented ideas passed…"
"It has always seemed to me that my existence consisted purely and exclusively of nothing but the most outrageous nons…"
"In those moments, which were eternal I assure you, I had no location in the universe, nothing to grasp for that minim…"
"You lie in the bed, an arm full of tubes, a mind full of drugs, but still thinking. You see the figure enter the quie…"
"Look at your body— A painted puppet, a poor toy Of jointed parts ready to collapse, A diseased and suffering thing Wi…"