Fatherhood, in the sense of conscious begetting, is unknown to man.
 James Joyce, Ulysses (1922). copy citation

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Author James Joyce
Source Ulysses
Topic fatherhood unknown
Date 1922
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4300/4300-h/4300-h.htm

Context

“The corpse of John Shakespeare does not walk the night. From hour to hour it rots and rots. He rests, disarmed of fatherhood, having devised that mystical estate upon his son. Boccaccio’s Calandrino was the first and last man who felt himself with child. Fatherhood, in the sense of conscious begetting, is unknown to man. It is a mystical estate, an apostolic succession, from only begetter to only begotten. On that mystery and not on the madonna which the cunning Italian intellect flung to the mob of Europe the church is founded and founded irremovably because founded, like the world, macro and microcosm, upon the void.” source