I think it's more likely that Quirrell is being sincere, and that he is trying to avert the prophecy that he heard at the end of Ch 89. As evidence, I submit:

"You don't like science," Harry said slowly. "Why not?"
"Those fool Muggles will kill us all someday!" Professor Quirrell's voice had grown louder. "They will end it! End all of it!"
- Chapter 20

"HE IS HERE. THE ONE WHO WILL TEAR APART THE VERY STARS IN HEAVEN. HE IS HERE. HE IS THE END OF THE WORLD."
- Chapter 89

"... If I have to brute-force the problem by acquiring enough power and knowledge to just make it happen, I will."
Another pause.
"And to go about that," the man in the corner said, "you will use your favorite tool, science."
"Of course."
The Defense Professor exhaled, almost like a sigh. "I suppose that makes sense of it."
- Chapter 90

I'm actually impressed with Quirrell's control, here. We can judge how great his fear of death is from his response to Dementor exposure, and here we have a prophecy which (to him, at least) is signalling the end of the entire universe. He's spent decades desperately trying to find a way to avoid death, and now he thinks he's looking it straight in the face. And nobody in the story has even noticed that he's concerned, although I'm pretty sure he was showing his fear a little at the end of 90 there. He must be gibbering on the inside, and holding it together out of sheer determination.

Of that much I'm fairly confident. This next bit is speculation on my part. I'm not going to give a percentage, it's just a hunch, but it is my pet hunch which I've had for a long time.

Quirrell has it all wrong. HPMORverse is actually a simulation being run at some higher level of reality, and Harry is going to figure this out and either rewrite the universe to his will, or airlift everybody in the world the hell out of there by their bootstraps, thereby mass-producing immortality. Merlin was the last wizard to know that the universe was a sim and he patched it to stop people breaking it. Unfortunately this resulted in the loss of a whole lot of useful stuff which may very well have been grandfathered in.