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H. P. Lovecraft Quotes

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H.P. Lovecraft was an American horror fiction writer known for his unique cosmic horror style and Gothic narrative. His works often explore the insignificance of humans in the face of the unknown and omnipotent forces, profoundly influencing horror literature in the second half of the 20th century.

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All Men World Knows Dream Horror Humans May Ifs Thinking Mind Real Mankind Writing Space Behinds Black Ends Form Strange Cosmos

Famous H. P. Lovecraft Quotes

“May the merciful god, if indeed there be such, guard those hours when no power of the will, or drug that the cunning of man devises, can keep me from the chasm of sleep. Death is merciful, for there is no return therefrom, but with him who has come back out of the nethermost chambers of night, haggard and knowing, peace rests nevermore.”

Ifs Men May Night Hours Sleep Knowing Return Drug Cunning Chamber Merciful Chasms Haggard Nevermore Merciful God

Book:H. P. Lovecraft Fiction Collection

Source: H. P. Lovecraft Fiction Collection

“There are probably seven persons, in all, who really like my work; and they are enough. I should write even if I were the only patient reader, for my aim is merely self-expression.”

Ifs Should Writing Persons Self Enough Expression Reader Aim Seven Patient Self Expression

Book:The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature

Source: The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature

“If we were sensible we would seek death - the same blissful blank which we enjoyed before we existed.”

Ifs Enjoyed Sensible Blank

Author:H. P. Lovecraft

“In short, the world abounds with simple delusions which we may call "happiness", if we be but able to entertain them.”

Ifs World May Able Simple Delusion

Author:H. P. Lovecraft

“The very fact that religions are not content to stand on their own feet, but insist on crippling or warping the flexible minds of children in their favour, forms a sufficient proof that there is no truth in them. If there were any truth in religion, it would be even more acceptable to a mature mind than to an infant mind--yet no mature mind ever accepts religion unless it has been crippled in infancy.”

Ifs Mind Children Has Beens Facts Would Be Form Accepting Feet Proof Sufficient Mature Acceptable Favour Infant Flexible Infancy Crippled

Book:Against Religion: The Atheist Writings of H.P. Lovecraft

Source: Against Religion: The Atheist Writings of H.P. Lovecraft

“I am distinctly opposed to visibly arrogant and arbitrary extremes of government--but this is simply because I wish the safety of an artistic and intellectual civilisation to be secure, not because I have any sympathy with the coarse-grained herd who would menace the civilisation if not placated by sops.”

Ifs Government Wish Intellectual Safety Extremes Secure Artistic Arrogant Arbitrary Herds Civilisation Menace Coarse

Book:Against Religion: The Atheist Writings of H.P. Lovecraft

Source: Against Religion: The Atheist Writings of H.P. Lovecraft

“It is because the cosmos is meaningless that we must secure our individual illusions of values, direction, and interest by upholding the artificial streams which give us such worlds of salutary illusion. That is - since nothing means anything in itself, we must preserve the proximate and arbitrary background which makes things around us seem as if they did mean something.”

Ifs World Giving Mean Seems Values Individual Interest Illusion Backgrounds Secure Preserves Streams Cosmos Meaningless Artificial Arbitrary Englishmen

Author:H. P. Lovecraft

“It is good to be a cynic - it is better to be a contented cat - and it is best not to exist at all. Universal suicide is the most logical thing in the world - we reject it only because of our primitive cowardice and childish fear of the dark. If we were sensible we would seek death - the same blissful blank which we enjoyed before we existed.”

Ifs World Dark Cat Universal Suicide Enjoyed Rejects Logical Sensible Cowardice Primitive Blank Cynic

Author:H. P. Lovecraft

“If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences.”

Ifs Life Trying Young Religion Consequence Practicals Backgrounds Conformity Followers Artificial Quests

Book:Against Religion: The Atheist Writings of H.P. Lovecraft

Source: Against Religion: The Atheist Writings of H.P. Lovecraft

“If I could create an ideal world, it would be an England with the fire of the Elizabethans, the correct taste of the Georgians, and the refinement and pure ideals of the Victorians.”

Ifs World Would Be Fire Taste Pure Ideals England If I Could Refinement Ideal World Elizabethan Georgians

Author:H. P. Lovecraft

“An isolated person requires correspondence as a means of seeing his ideas as others see them, and thus guarding against the dogmatisms and extravagances of solitary and uncorrected speculation. No man can learn to reason and appraise from a mere perusal of the writing of others. If he live not in the world, where he can observe the public at first hand and be directed toward solid reality by the force of conversation and spoken debate, then he must sharpen his discrimination and regulate his perceptive balance by an equivalent exchange of ideas in epistolary form.”

“If I am mad, it is mercy! May the gods pity the man who in his callousness can remain sane to the hideous end!”

Ifs Men Life Inspirational May Ends God Mercy Mad Pity Sane Hideous Callousness

Book:The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft

Source: The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft

“The one test of the really weird (story) is simply this--whether or not there be excited in the reader a profound sense of dread, and of contact with unknown spheres and powers; a subtle attitude of awed listening, as if for the beating of black wings or the scratching of outside shapes and entities on the known universe's utmost rim.”

Source: Mythos: The Myths and Tales of H.P. Lovecraft & Robert E. Howard

“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 loossed upon the world.”

Ifs World Humans Brain Horror Ultimate Species Mortals Revelations Reserves Shocking Human Species

Book:H. P. LOVECRAFT äóñ The Ultimate Horror Collection: 60 Occult & Supernatural Mysteries in One Volume: The Greatest Spine-Chilling and Blood-Curdling Stories of Terror & Macabre: The Call of Cthulhu, The White Ship, The Dunwich Horror, At The Mountains Of Madness, The Whisperer in Darknessäó_

Source: H. P. LOVECRAFT äóñ The Ultimate Horror Collection: 60 Occult & Supernatural Mysteries in One Volume: The Greatest Spine-Chilling and Blood-Curdling Stories of Terror & Macabre: The Call of Cthulhu, The White Ship, The Dunwich Horror, At The Mountains Of Madness, The Whisperer in Darknessäó_