There are horrors beyond life's edge that we do not suspect, and once in a while man's evil prying calls them just within our range.
H. P. LovecraftRead
Now all my tales are based on the fundemental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large.... To achieve the essence of real externality, whether of time or space or dimension, one must forget that such things as organic life, good and evil, love and hate, and all such local attributes of a negligible and temporary race called mankind, have any existence at all.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that human emotions and values are insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe.
H. P. Lovecraft's quote embodies a philosophical view that human experiences and moral constructs are trivial when considered against the vastness of the cosmos. It implies that to truly understand existence, one must transcend conventional human experiences such as love, hate, and moral judgments, recognizing their fleeting nature in a universe that is indifferent to them.
Themes
CosmosExistenceHuman EmotionsIndifferenceTranscendence
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophical discussion on the meaning of life.
More from H. P. Lovecraft
All quotes →I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men.
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Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places.
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The process of delving into the black abyss is to me the keenest form of fascination.
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No new horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of the commonplace.
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I am, indeed, an absolute materialist so far as actual belief goes; with not a shred of credence in any form of supernaturalism—religion, spiritualism, transcendentalism, metempsychosis, or immortality.
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