David Benatar famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

Creating new people, by having babies, is so much a part of human life that it is rarely thought even to require a justification. Indeed, most people do not even think about whether they should or should not make a baby. They just make one. In other words, procreation is usually the consequence of sex rather than the result of a decision to bring people into existence. Those who do indeed decide to have a child might do so for any number of reasons, but among these reasons cannot be the interests of the potential child. One can never have a child for that childâ€™s sake.
-- David Benatar

#Baby #Sex #Children
Each one of us was harmed by being brought into existence. That harm is not negligible, because the quality of even the best lives is very badâ€”and considerably worse than most people recognize it to be. Although it is obviously too late to prevent our own existence, it is not too late to prevent the existence of future possible people.
-- David Benatar

#People #Quality #Too Late
We infrequently contemplate the harms that await any new-born childâ€”pain, disappointment, anxiety, grief, and death. For any given child we cannot predict what form these harms will take or how severe they will be, but we can be sure that at least some of them will occur. None of this befalls the nonexistent. Only existers suffer harm.
-- David Benatar

#Children #Pain #Disappointment
It is unlikely that many people will take to heart the conclusion that coming into existence is always a harm. It is even less likely that many people will stop having children. By contrast, it is quite likely that my views either will be ignored or will be dismissed. As this response will account for a great deal of suffering between now and the demise of humanity, it cannot plausibly be thought of as philanthropic. That is not to say that it is motivated by any malice towards humans, but it does result from a self-deceptive indifference to the harm of coming into existence.
-- David Benatar

#Children #Heart #Self
As we have seen, nobody is lucky enough not to be born, everybody is unlucky enough to have been born â€“ and particularly bad luck it is.
-- David Benatar

#Luck #Enough #Born
It is curious that while good people go to great lengths to spare their children from suffering, few of them seem to notice that the one (and only) guaranteed way to prevent all the suffering of their children is not to bring those children into existence in the first place.
-- David Benatar

#Children #People #Suffering
Notice, by extension, that in a democracy those committed to non-procreation could never, in the long run, prevail politically against those committed to procreation.
-- David Benatar

#Running #Long #Democracy
On my view there is no net benefit to coming into existence and thus coming into existence is never worth its costs.
-- David Benatar

#Views #Cost #Benefits
I am under no illusions. My position, no matter how clearly stated, is likely to be misunderstood.
-- David Benatar

#Misunderstood #Matter #Illusion

You just came wild and sexy all over my hand and even left some claw marks on my back to prove it. Donâ€™t go getting shy on me now. â€˜Cause baby, before the night is over you will be naked in my bed.
Sometimes you can gradually improve things. But sometimes, they don't work, and you've just got to just say: Let's grind this baby to a halt.
It's late at night and I can't sleep. Missing you just runs too deep. Oh I can't breathe, thinking of your smile. Every kiss I can't forget, this aching heart ain't broken yet. Oh God I wish I could make you see Cause I know this flame isn't dying So nothing can stop me from trying Baby you know that Maybe it's time for miracles Cause I ain't giving up on love You know that maybe it's time for miracles Cause I ain't giving up on love No I ain't giving up on us
But then, even with sex, I'm more in the school of less is more in movies.
Screw guilt -- I could have sex with 10 men and it wouldn't bother me. I'm an atheist!
There are many men - such as those often to be found among the Indians - who are refined until they have qualities often attributed to the female sex. Yet they are men, and strong ones.
I don't know how long a child will remain utterly static in front of the television, but my guess is that it could be well into their thirties.
Happy bridegroom, Hesper brings All desired and timely things. All whom morning sends to roam, Hesper loves to lead them home. Home return who him behold, Child to mother, sheep to fold, Bird to nest from wandering wide: Happy bridegroom, seek your bride.
It is remarkable how easily children and grown-ups adapt to living in a dictatorship organised by lunatics.
Elderly gentlemen, gentle in all respects, kind to animals, beloved by children, and fond of music, are found in lonely corners of the downs, hacking at sandpits or tussocks of grass, and muttering in a blind, ungovernable fury elaborate maledictions which could not be extracted from them by robbery or murder. Men who would face torture without a word become blasphemous at the short fourteenth. It is clear that the game of golf may well be included in that category of intolerable provocations which may legally excuse or mitigate behavior not otherwise excusable.

David Benatar famous quotes

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