Traces of nobility, gentleness and courage persist in all people, do what we will to stamp out the trend. So, too, do those characteristics which are ugly. It is just unfortunate that in the clumsy hands of a cartoonist all traits become ridiculous, leading to a certain amount of self-conscious expostulation and the desire to join battle.
There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tinny blast on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us.
Forward!
Walt Kelly (1913–1973) American animator and cartoonist [Walter Crawford Kelly, Jr.]
The Pogo Papers, Introduction (1953)
This looks to be the origin of the famous Pogo phrase, "We have met the enemy and he is us," which Kelly introduced in that shorter form in 1970. Both are inspired by Oliver Perry's report on the Battle of Lake Erie (1813), "We have met the enemy and they are ours."
Quotations about:
humanity
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
Now, that man is more of a political animal than bees or any other gregarious animals is evident. Nature, as we often say, makes nothing in vain, and man is the only animal whom she has endowed with the gift of speech.
[διότι δὲ πολιτικὸν ὁ ἄνθρωπος ζῷον πάσης μελίττης καὶ παντὸς ἀγελαίου ζῴου μᾶλλον, δῆλον. οὐθὲν γάρ, ὡς φαμέν, μάτην ἡ φύσις ποιεῖ·]
Aristotle (384–322 BC) Greek philosopher
Politics [Πολιτικά], Book 1, ch. 2, sec. 10 / 1253a.7-11 [tr. Jowett (1885)]
(Source)
Original Greek. Other translations:
- "And that man is a social animal in a fuller sense than any bee or gregarious animal is evident; for nature, we say, makes nothing without an object, and man is the only animal that possesses rational speech." [tr. Bolland (1877)]
- "The gift of speech also evidently proves that man is a more social animal than the bees, or any of the herding cattle: for nature, as we say, does nothing in vain, and man is the only animal who enjoys it." [tr. Ellis (1912)]
- "And why man is a political animal in a greater measure than any bee or any gregarious animal is clear. For nature, as we declare, does nothing without purpose; and man alone of the animals possesses speech." [tr. Rackham (1932)]
- "That man is much more a political animal than any kind of bee or any herd animal is clear. For, as we assert, nature does nothing in vain; and man alone among the animals has speech." [tr. Lord (1984)]
- "It is also clear why a human is more of a political animal than any bee or any other gregarious animal. For nature does nothing pointlessly, as we say, and a human being alone among the animals has speech." [tr. Reeve (2007)]
- "It is clear that man is a political animal, more than every bee and herd animal: for nature makes nothing in vain and man alone of living things has reason." [tr. @sentantiq (2011)]
The vanity of man revolts from the serene indifference of the cat.
The love of one’s country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?
Pablo Casals (1876–1973) Spanish cellist, conductor, composer
In Joys and Sorrows: Reflections by Pablo Casals as told to Albert E. Kahn (1970)
The domestic cat is a contradiction. No animal has developed such an intimate relationship with mankind, while at the same time demanding and getting such independence of movement and action.
Desmond Morris (b. 1928) English zoologist, ethologist, author
Catwatching, Introduction (1986)
(Source)
War makes murderers out of otherwise decent people. All wars, and all decent people.
Benjamin Ferencz (b. 1920) American lawyer, international legal scholar, activist
“What the last Nuremberg prosecutor alive wants the world to know,” interview with Leslie Stahl, 60 Minutes (7 May 2017)
(Source)
Ferencz served as chief prosecutor of twenty Einsatzgruppen officers during the Nuremberg war crimes trials. Longer excerpt:STAHL: Did you meet a lot of people who perpetrated war crimes who would otherwise in your opinion have been just a normal, upstanding citizen?
FERENCZ: Of course, is my answer. These men would never have been murderers had it not been for the war. These were people who could quote Goethe, who loved Wagner, who were polite --
STAHL: What turns a man into a savage beast like that?
FERENCZ: He's not a savage. He's an intelligent, patriotic human being.
STAHL: He's a savage when he does the murder though.
FERENCZ: No. He's a patriotic human being acting in the interest of his country, in his mind.
STAHL: You don't think they turn into savages even for the act?
FERENCZ: Do you think the man who dropped the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima was a savage? Now I will tell you something very profound, which I have learned after many years. War makes murderers out of otherwise decent people. All wars, and all decent people.
Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.
Above all, the search after truth and its eager pursuit are peculiar to man. And so, when we have leisure from the demands of business cares, we are eager to see, to hear, to learn something new, and we esteem a desire to know the secrets or wonders of creation as indispensable to a happy life. Thus we come to understand that what is true, simple, and genuine appeals most strongly to a man’s nature.
[In primisque hominis est propria veri inquisitio atque investigatio. Itaque cum sumus necessariis negotiis curisque vacui, tum avemus aliquid videre, audire, addiscere cognitionemque rerum aut occultarum aut admirabilium ad beate vivendum necessarian! ducimus. Ex quo intellegitur, quod verum, simplex sincerumque sit, id esse naturae hominis aptissimum.]
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
De Officiis [On Duties; On Moral Duty; The Offices], Book 1, ch. 4 (1.4) / sec. 13 (44 BC) [tr. Miller (1913)]
(Source)
Original Latin. Alt. trans.:But of all the properties and inclinations of men, there is none more natural and peculiar to them than an earnest desire and search after truth. Hence it is that our minds are no sooner free from the thoughts and engagements of necessary business, but we presently long to be either seeing, or hearing, or learning of something; and esteem the knowledge of things secret and wonderful as a necessary ingredient of a happy life. Whence it appears that nothing is more agreeable and suited to the nature and minds of men than undisguised openness, truth, and sincerity.
[tr. Cockman (1699)]The desire and investigation of truth is proper to man. When disengaged from necessary business and cares, we are eager to add to our knowledge by examining for ourselves or listening to others. The discovery of what is secret or wonderful, we are disposed to conceive essential to happiness. Hence, what is true, simple, and undisguised, is best adapted to human nature.
[tr. McCartney (1798)]Before all other things, man is distinguished by his pursuit and investigation of TRUTH. And hence, when free from needful business and cares, we delight to see, to hear, and to communicate, and consider a knowledge of many admirable and abstruse things necessary to the good conduct and happiness of our lives: whence it is clear that whatsoever is TRUE, simple, and direct, the same is most congenial to our nature as men.
[In John Frederick William Herschel, A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, Epigraph (1830)]The distinguishing property of man is to search for and to follow after truth. Therefore, when relaxed from our necessary cares and concerns, we then covet to see, to hear, and to learn somewhat; and we esteem knowledge of things either obscure or wonderful to be the indispensable means of living happily. From this we understand that truth, simplicity, and candour, are most agreeable to the nature of mankind.
[tr. Edmonds (1865)]The research and investigation of truth, also, are a special property of man. Thus, when we are free from necessary occupations, we want to see, or hear, or learn something, and regard the knowledge of things either secret or wonderful as essential to our living happily and well.
[tr. Peabody (1883)]The distinctive faculty of man is his eager desire to investigate the truth. Thus, when free from pressing duties and cares, we are eager to see or hear, or learn something new, and we think our happiness is incomplete unless we study the mysteries and the marvels of the universe.
[tr. Gardiner (1899)]The first duty of man is the seeking after and the investigation of truth.
[ed. Harbottle (1906)Inquiry into and searching for truth are primary characteristics of mankind. So when we are free from business obligations and other preoccupations, we become eager to see something new, to hear and learn something; we begin to think that knowledge about the mysteries and wonders of the world is necessary to a happy life.
[tr. Edinger (1974)]
A cat can be trusted to purr when she is pleased, which is more than can be said for human beings.
William Ralph Inge (1860–1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
A Rustic Moralist (1934)
“All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need … fantasies to make life bearable.”
Really? As if it was some kind of pink pill? No. Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little –”
Yes. As practice. You have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
“So we can believe the big ones?”
Yes. Justice. Mercy. Duty. That sort of thing.
“They’re not the same at all!”
You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet — Death waved a hand. And yet you act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some … some rightness in the universe by which it may be judged.
“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point –”
My point exactly.
No matter how black, white, male, female, Irish, German, tall, short, ugly or pretty you felt this year, you are part of a family that has been targeted by an unforgiving cosmos since its inception but has, regardless, survived. If a TV show about this family were to be created, you would very, very much enjoy it, and pay very much money for several seasons of it on DVD, because humanity, warts and all, is an inherently heroic species that has spent about 99.99% of its short lifetime as an underdog. And If you see no billboards telling you that, it’s not because it’s not true. It’s because there’s little to no profit to be made telling you.
I could go on and on about the suffering we’ve endured and the adaptations we’ve made, but to me, our species’ crowning jewel is that on the shortest day of the year, when the sun spends most of its time swallowed, when everything is frozen, when nothing can grow, when the air is so cold our voices stop right in front of our faces … we put a string of lights on a universe that is currently doing nothing to earn it. We not only salvage an otherwise desolate time of year, we make it the best time of year.
Dan Harmon (b. 1973) American writer, producer, entertainer
“Drunk High Christmas Greetings!” blog entry, DanHarmon.com (26 Dec 2008)
(Source)
Angels are souls blown into lights,
Jinn are souls blown into winds,
and Human Beings are souls blown into shapes.Ibn 'Arabi (1165–1240) Arab Andalusian Muslim scholar, Sufi mystic, poet, philosopher [ابن عربي]
(Attributed)
(Source)
Whether listening to the shrieks of the Shaman sorcerers of Tatary, or to the odes of Pindar, or to the sacred songs of Paul Gerhard; whether looking at the pagodas of China, or the Parthenon of Athens, or the cathedral of Cologne; whether reading the sacred books of the Buddhists, of the Jews, or of those who worship God in spirit and in truth, we ought to be able to say, like the Emperor Maximilian, “Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto;” or, translating his words somewhat freely, “I am a man; nothing pertaining to man I deem foreign to myself.”
Max Müller (1823–1900) German-British philologist, Orientalist, religious studies founder
Chips from a German Workshop, “Lecture on the Vedas” (1866)
(Source)
What a strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and out comes sighs, laughter, and dreams.
Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957) Greek writer and philosopher
Zorba the Greek, ch. 23 (1946)
“People aren’t either wicked or noble,” the hook-handed man said. “They’re like chef salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.”
Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Grim Grotto (2004)
Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike. This natural beauty-hunger is made manifest in the little window-sill gardens of the poor, though perhaps only a geranium slip in a broken cup, as well as in the carefully tended rose and lily gardens of the rich, the thousands of spacious city parks and botanical gardens, and in our magnificent National parks.
John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-American naturalist
The Yosemite, ch. 15 “Hetch Hetchy Valley” (1912)
(Source)
A lot of the arguments about religion going on at the moment spring from a rather inept understanding of religious truth. Our notion changed during the early modern period when we became convinced that the only path to any kind of truth was reason. That works beautifully for science but doesn’t work so well for the humanities. Religion is really an art form and a struggle to find value and meaning amid the ghastly tragedy of human life.
Karen Armstrong (b. 1944) British author, comparative religion scholar
“The Reason of Faith,” Interview with Michael Brunton, Ode (Sep-Oct 2009)
(Source)
I am a weak, ephemeral creature made of mud and dream. But I feel all the powers of the universe whirling within me.
Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957) Greek writer and philosopher
The Saviors of God [Salvatores Dei], “The Preparation: Second Duty,” #22 (1923) [tr. Friar [1960])
(Source)
Which is it? Is man one of God’s blunders? Or is God one of man’s blunders?
[Wie? ist der Mensch nur ein Fehlgriff Gottes? Oder Gott nur ein Fehlgriff des Menschen?]
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher and poet
Twilight of the Idols [Die Götzen-Dämmerung], “Apophthegms and Darts [Sprüche und Pfeile]” #7 (1889)
Other translations:
- "How is it? Is man only a mistake of God? Or God only a mistake of man? --" [tr. Common (1896)]
- "What? Is man just one of God's mistakes? Or is God just one of man's? --" [tr. Large (1998),"Maxims and Barbs"]
- "What? Is man just God's mistake? Or is God just man's mistake?" [tr. Norman (2005), "Arrows and Epigrams"]
- "What? Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man's?" [tr. Hollingdale (1968)]
- "Which is it? Is man only a blunder of God? Or is God only a blunder of man?" [tr. Ludovici (1911), "Maxims and Missiles"]
When great causes are on the move in the world, stirring all men’s souls, drawing them from their firesides, casting aside comfort, wealth, and the pursuit of happiness in response to impulses at once awe-striking and irresistible, we learn that we are spirits, not animals, and that something is going on in space and time, and beyond space and time, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.
Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British statesman and author
BBC Radio broadcast (16 Jun 1941)
(Source)
First published in the Imperial Review (28 Jun 1941).
The history of the human race is a continual struggle from darkness towards light. It is, therefore, to no purpose to discuss the use of knowledge; man wants to know, and when he ceases to do so, he is no longer man.
Fridtjof Nansen (1861–1930) Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian
“A New Route to the North Pole,” The Forum (Aug 1891)
(Source)
For the wonderful thing about saints is that they were human. They lost their tempers, got hungry, scolded God, were egotistical or testy or impatient in their turns, made mistakes and regretted them. Still they went on doggedly blundering toward heaven.
Phyllis McGinley (1905–1978) American author, poet
Saint-Watching, “Running to Paradise” (1969)
That men should pray and fight for their own freedom, and yet keep others in slavery, is certainly acting a very inconsistent, as well as unjust and, perhaps, impious part, but the history of mankind is filled with instances of human improprieties.
John Jay (1745–1829) American statesman, diplomat, abolitionist, politician, Chief Justice (1789–1795)
Letter to Rev. Doctor Price (27 Sep 1785)
(Source)
Men may be divided almost any way we please, but I have found the most useful distinction to be made between those who devote their lives to conjugating the verb “to be” and those who spend their lives conjugating the verb “to have.”
Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986) Anglo-American columnist, journalist, author
For the Time Being, ch. 6, epigram (1972)
(Source)
Man, in his present state, appears to be a degraded creature; his best gold is mixed with dross, and his best motives are very far from being pure and free from earth and impurity.
John Jay (1745–1829) American statesman, diplomat, abolitionist, politician, Chief Justice (1789–1795)
Letter to Lindley Murray (22 Aug 1774)
(Source)
As is the generation of leaves, so is that of humanity.
The wind scatters the leaves on the ground, but the live timber
Burgeons with leaves again in the season of spring returning.
So one generation of men will grow while another dies.[Οἵη περ φύλλων γενεὴ τοίη δὲ καὶ ἀνδρῶν.
φύλλα τὰ μέν τ’ ἄνεμος χαμάδις χέει, ἄλλα δέ θ’ ὕλη
τηλεθόωσα φύει, ἔαρος δ’ ἐπιγίγνεται ὥρη·
ὣς ἀνδρῶν γενεὴ ἣ μὲν φύει ἣ δ’ ἀπολήγει.]Homer (fl. 7th-8th C. BC) Greek author
The Iliad [Ἰλιάς], Book 6, l. 146ff (6.146-149) (c. 750 BC) [tr. Lattimore (1951)]
(Source)Like the race of leaves
The race of man is, that deserves no question; nor receives
My being any other breath? The wind in autumn strows
The earth with old leaves, then the spring the woods with new endows;
And so death scatters men on earth, so life puts out again
Man’s leavy issue.
[tr. Chapman (1611), l. 141ff]Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground:
Another race the following spring supplies,
They fall successive, and successive rise:
So generations in their course decay;
So flourish these, when those are past away.
[tr. Pope (1715-20)]For, as the leaves, such is the race of man.
The wind shakes down the leaves, the budding grove
Soon teems with others, and in spring they grow.
So pass mankind. One generation meets
Its destined period, and a new succeeds.
[tr. Cowper (1791), l. 175ff]As is the race of leaves, even such is the race of men. Some leaves the wind sheds upon the ground, but the fructifying wood produces others, and these grow up in the season of spring. Such is the generation of men; one produces, another ceases.
[tr. Buckley (1860)]The race of man is as the race of leaves:
Of leaves, one generation by the wind
Is scatter'd on the earth; another soon
In spring's luxuriant verdure bursts to light.
So with our race; these flourish, those decay.
[tr. Derby (1864)]Even as are the generations of leaves such are those likewise of men; the leaves that be the wind scattereth on the earth, and the forest buddeth and putteth forth more again, when the season of spring is at hand; so of the generations of men one putteth forth and another ceaseth.
[tr. Leaf/Lang/Myers (1891)]Men come and go as leaves year by year upon the trees. Those of autumn the wind sheds upon the ground, but when spring returns the forest buds forth with fresh vines. Even so is it with the generations of mankind, the new spring up as the old are passing away.
[tr. Butler (1898)]Even as are the generations of leaves, such are those also of men. As for the leaves, the wind scattereth some upon the earth, but the forest, as it bourgeons, putteth forth others when the season of spring is come; even so of men one generation springeth up and another passeth away.
[tr. Murray (1924)]Very like leaves upon this earth are the generations of men -- old leaves, cast on the ground by wind, young leaves the greening forest bears when spring comes in. So mortals pass; one generation flowers even as another dies away.
[tr. Fitzgerald (1974)]Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men.
Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth,
now the living timber bursts with the new buds
and spring comes round again. And so with men:
as one generation comes to life, another dies away.
[tr. Fagles (1990), ll. 171-75]
Man is rated the highest animal, at least among all animals who returned the questionnaire.
Robert Brault (b. c. 1945) American aphorist, programmer
(Attributed)
Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.
Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author
Discworld No. 38, I Shall Wear Midnight (2010)
(Source)
The protagonist, Tiffany, recalling something that Granny Weatherwax had once said.
Man’s greatest blunder has been in trying to make peace with the skies instead of making peace with his neighbors.
Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, businessman, philosopher
In The Philistine (Sep 1910)
(Source)
Reprinted in The Philosophy of Elbert Hubbard, "Epigrams" (1916) [ed. Hoyle].
It is not murder which is forgiven but the killer, his person as it appears in circumstances and intentions. The trouble with the Nazi criminals was precisely that they renounced voluntarily all personal qualities, as if nobody were left to be either punished or forgiven. They protested time and again that they had never done anything out of their own initiative, that they had no intentions whatsoever, good or bad, and that they only obeyed orders.
To put it another way: the greatest evil perpetrated is the evil committed by nobodies, that is, by human beings who refuse to be persons.Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
Lecture (1965-1966), “Some Questions of Moral Philosophy,” New School for Social Research, New York City
(Source)
This is from a series of lectures Arendt gave at the New School for Social Research in NYC (1965), and at the University of Chicago ("Basic Moral Propositions," 1966). These were reworked and collected under this title in Responsibility and Judgment, Part 1 "Responsibility" (2003).
There is a raging tiger inside every man whom God put on this earth. Every man worthy of the respect of his children spends his life building inside himself a cage to pen that tiger in.
Murray Kempton (1917–1997) American journalist.
America Comes of Middle Age: Columns, 1950-1962 (1963)
(Source)
I must respekt thoze, I suppose, who never make enny blunders, but I don’t luv them.
[I must respect those, I suppose, who never make any blunders, but I don’t love them.]
MORDEN: Think about it, Captain. Look at the long history of human struggle. Six thousand years of recorded wars, bloodshed, atrocities beyond description. But look at what came out of all that. We’ve gone to the stars. Split the atom. Written sonnets. We would never have evolved this far if we hadn’t been at each other’s throats, evolving our way up inch by inch.
J. Michael (Joe) Straczynski (b. 1954) American screenwriter, producer, author [a/k/a "JMS"]
Babylon 5, 3×22 “Z’Ha’Dum” (28 Oct 1996)
To believe that man’s aggressiveness or territoriality is in the nature of the beast is to mistake some men for all men, contemporary society for all possible societies, and, by a remarkable transformation, to justify what is as what needs must be; social repression becomes a response to, rather than a cause of, human violence.
Leon Eisenberg (1922–2009) American psychiatrist and medical educator
“The Human Nature of Human Nature,” Science (14 Apr 1972)
(Source)
Based on an address at Faculty of Medicine Day, McGill University Sesquicentennial Celebration, Montreal, Canada (1 Oct 1971).
For the lesson of such stories is simple and within everybody’s grasp. Politically speaking, it is that under conditions of terror, most people will comply but some people will not, just as the lesson of the countries to which the Final Solution was proposed is that “it could happen” in most places but it did not happen everywhere. Humanly speaking, no more is required, and no more can reasonably be asked, for this planet to remain a place fit for human habitation.
Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, ch. 14 (1963)
(Source)
Speaking of resistance to Nazi atrocities.
Pessimism about man serves to maintain the status quo. It is a luxury for the affluent, a sop to the guilt of the politically inactive, a comfort to those who continue to enjoy the amenities of privilege.
Leon Eisenberg (1922–2009) American psychiatrist and medical educator
“The Human Nature of Human Nature,” Science (14 Apr 1972)
(Source)
Based on an address at Faculty of Medicine Day, McGill University Sesquicentennial Celebration, Montreal, Canada (1 Oct 1971).
With St. Paul it is quite different. He is a saint without a luminous halo. His personal characteristics are too distinct and too human to make idealisation easy. For this reason he has never been the object of popular devotion. Shadowy figures like St. Joseph and St. Anne have been divinised and surrounded with picturesque legends; but St. Paul has been spared the honour or the ignominy of being coaxed and wheedled by the piety of paganised Christianity. No tender fairy-tales are attached to his cult; he remains for us what he was in the flesh. It is even possible to feel an active dislike for him.
William Ralph Inge (1860–1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
“St. Paul” (1914), Outspoken Essays: First Series (1914)
(Source)
The brain is only three pounds of blood, dream, and electricity, and yet from that mortal stew come Beethoven’s sonatas. Dizzy Gillespie’s jazz. Audrey Hepburn’s wish to spend the last month of her life in Somalia, saving children.
Diane Ackerman (b. 1948) American poet, author, naturalist
A Natural History of Love, “Brain-Stem Sonata: The Neurophysiology of Love” (1994)
(Source)
Man proposes, and God disposes.
[Ordina l’uomo e Dio dispone.]
God created man and, finding him not sufficiently alone, gave him a companion to make him feel his solitude more keenly.
Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, critic, author, polymath
“Moralités” (1932), Tel Quel 1 (1941)
One does not become fully human painlessly.
Rollo May (1909–1994) American psychotherapist
Foreword to Ronald S. Valle and Mark King, Existential-Phenomenological Alternatives for Psychology (1978)
We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us. Ideas of the Stone Age exist side by side with the latest scientific thought. Only a fraction of mankind has emerged from the Dark Ages, and in the most lucid brains, as Logan Pearsall Smith has said, we come upon “nests of woolly caterpillars.”
Bergen Evans (1904–1978) American educator, writer, lexicographer
The Natural History of Nonsense, ch. 1 “Adam’s Navel” (1946)
Leonardo’s Mona Lisa is just a thousand thousand smears of paint. Michelangelo’s David is just a million hits with a hammer. We’re all of us a million bits put together the right way.
Chuck Palahniuk (b. 1962) American novelist and freelance journalist
Diary (2003)
The human baby, the human being, is a mosaic of animal and angel.
Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-English humanist and mathematician
The Ascent of Man, ch. 1 (1973)
(Source)
CHORUS [LEADER]:
Ye Children of Man! whose life is a span,
Protracted with sorrow from day to day,
Naked and featherless, feeble and querulous,
Sickly, calamitous creatures of clay![ἄγε δὴ φύσιν ἄνδρες ἀμαυρόβιοι, φύλλων γενεᾷ προσόμοιοι,
ὀλιγοδρανέες, πλάσματα πηλοῦ, σκιοειδέα φῦλ᾽ ἀμενηνά,
ἀπτῆνες ἐφημέριοι ταλαοὶ βροτοὶ ἀνέρες εἰκελόνειροι]Aristophanes (c. 450-c. 388 BC) Athenian comedic playwright
The Birds, ll. 685-687 (414 BC) [tr. Frere (1839)]
(Source)
Alt. trans.:
- "Come now, ye men, in nature darkling, like to the race of leaves, of little might, figures of clay, shadowy feeble tribes, wingless creatures of a day, miserable mortals, dream-like men." [tr. Hickie (1853)]
- "Weak mortals, chained to the earth, creatures of clay as frail as the foliage of the woods, you unfortunate race, whose life is but darkness, as unreal as a shadow, the illusion of a dream." [tr. O'Neill (1938)]
- "Come, ye of mortal mould, whose life is spent in darkness, ye who are like to the race of leaves, ye that are weak in action, ye images of clay, ye feeble shadowy tribes, ye wingless creatures of a day, ye miserable mortals, ye men like unto the stuff which dreams are made of ...." [tr. Warter (1830)]
- "Now then, ye men by nature just faintly alive, like to the race of leaves, do-littles, artefacts of clay, tribes shadowy and feeble, wingless ephemerals, suffering mortals, dreamlike people ...." [tr. Henderson (1998)]
- "Ye men who are dimly existing below, who perish and fade as the leaf, / Pale, woebegone, shadowlike, spiritless folk, life feeble and wingless and brief, / Frail castings in clay, who are gone in a day, like a dream full of sorrow and sighing ...." [tr. Rogers (1906)]
CHORUS: Full of wiles, full of guile, at all times, in all ways, are the children of Men.
[δολερὸν μὲν ἀεὶ κατὰ πάντα δὴ τρόπον / πέφυκεν ἄνθρωπος]
Aristophanes (c. 450-c. 388 BC) Athenian comedic playwright
The Birds, ll. 451-2 (414 BC) [tr. Rogers (1906)]
(Source)
Alt. trans.:
- "Man naturally is deceitful, ever indeed, and always, in every one thing." [tr. Warter (1830)]
- "Man is naturally deceitful ever, in every way!" [tr. Hickie (1853)]
- "Man is a truly cunning creature." [abridged tr. O'Neill (1938)]
- "A treacherous thing always in every way is human nature." [tr. Henderson (1998)]
Art — the one achievement of Man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised.
James Thurber (1894–1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
Forum and Century (Jun 1939)
Also quoted in Clifton Fadiman, I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Certain Eminent Men and Women of Our Time (1939).
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American fabulist [Howard Phillips Lovecraft]
“The Call of Cthulhu,” ch. 1, opening words (1928)
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We thus learn that Man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World.
Do not only look
For gentlefolk in castles: everywhere,
In humble dwellings and in haylofts, too,
The hearts of men are often kind and true.[Che non pur per cittadi e per castella,
Ma per tuguri ancora e per fenili
Spesso si trovan gli uomini gentili.]Ludovico Ariosto (1474–1533) Italian poet
Orlando Furioso, Canto 14, st. 62 (1532) [tr. Reynolds (1973)]
(Source)
Other translations: "For not alone dwells Hospitality / In court and city; but ofttimes we find / In loft and cottage men of gentle kind." [tr. Rose (1831)]
Most men resemble great deserted palaces: the owner occupies only a few rooms and has closed-off wings where he never ventures.
[Presque tous les hommes ressemblent à ces grands palais déserts dont le propriétaire n’habite que quelques pièces; et il ne pénètre jamais dans les ailes condamnées.]
François Mauriac (1885–1970) French author, critic, journalist
Second Thoughts: Reflections on Literature and on Life (1961) [tr. Foulke]
Feminism: The radical notion that women are people.
Marie Shear (1940–2017) American writer and feminist activist
“Media Watch: Celebrating Women’s Words,” New Directions for Women (May/Jun 1986)
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Often misattributed to Cheris Kramarae and Paula Treichler, A Feminist Dictionary (1985), which was the subject of Shear's review.
My definition of Man is “a Cooking animal.” The beasts have memory, judgment, and all the faculties and passions of our mind, in a certain degree; but no beast is a cook. … Man alone can dress a good dish; and every man whatever is more or less a cook, in seasoning what he himself eats.
James Boswell (1740–1795) Scottish biographer, diarist, lawyer
The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, Sunday, 15 Aug, footnote (1785)
(Source)
Unlike most quoted Boswell, this is his own thought, not that of Samuel Johnson, recounting a conversation he had with Edmund Burke.
In art as in politics we must deal with people as they are, not as we wish them to be. Only by working with the real can you get closer to the ideal.
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
In Her Day, Preface, “A Note to the Feminist Reader” (1976)
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After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure. You know, the Stone was really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all — the trouble is, humans do have a knack for choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.
Joanne "Jo" Rowling (b. 1965) British novelist [writes as J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith]
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, ch. 17 [Dumbledore] (1997)
Human beings are more alike than unalike. There’s no real mystique. Every human being, every Jew, Christian, back-slider, Muslim, Shintoist, Zen Buddhist, atheist, agnostic, every human being wants a nice place to live, a good place for the children to go to school, healthy children, somebody to love, the courage, the unmitigated gall, to accept love in return, some place to relax on Saturday or Sunday night, and some place to experience their God.
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American poet, memoirist, activist [b. Marguerite Ann Johnson]
“The Art of Fiction,” Paris Review, #116, Interview with George Plimpton (1990)
(Source)
A similar passage, from a speech at Ohio Dominican College (9 Dec 1993): "Humans are wonderfully different and marvelously alike. Human being are more alike than unalike. Whether in Paris, Texas, or Paris, France, we all want to have good jobs where we are needed and respected and paid just a little more than we deserve. We want healthy children, safe streets, to be loved and have the unmitigated gall to accept love. If we are religious, we want a place to perpetuate God. If not, we want a good lecture every once in a while. And everyone wants someplace to party on Saturday nights."
I am a democrat because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. And whenever their weakness is exposed, the people who prefer tyranny make capital out of the exposure. I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. Nor do most people — all the people who believe advertisements, and think in catchwords and spread rumours. The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.
I believe in aristocracy, though — if that is the right word, and if a democrat may use it. Not an aristocracy of power, based upon rank and influence, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet. They represent the true human tradition, the one permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty and chaos. Thousands of them perish in obscurity, a few are great names. They are sensitive for others as well as for themselves, they are considerate without being fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but the power to endure, and they can take a joke.
That the beauty of life is a thing of no moment, I suppose few people would venture to assert, and yet most civilized people act as if it were of none, and in so doing are wronging themselves and those that are to come after them; for that beauty, which is what is meant by art, using the word in its widest sense, is, I contend, no mere accident to human life, which people can take or leave as they choose, but a positive necessity of life, if we are to live as nature meant us to; that is, unless we are content to be less than men.
William Morris (1834–1896) British textile designer, writer, socialist activist
“The Beauty of Life,” lecture, Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design (19 Feb 1880)
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I’ve seen the meanness of humans till I don’t know why God ain’t put out the sun and gone away.
Cormac McCarthy (1933–2023) American novelist, playwright, screenwriter
Outer Dark, ch. 17 (1968)
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“And what would humans be without love?”
Rare, said Death.
Do I seem to say, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die?” Far from it; on the contrary, I say, “Let us take hands and help, for this day we are alive together.”
William Kingdon Clifford (1845–1879) English mathematician and philosopher
“The First and the Last Catastrophe,” Popular Science Monthly (Jul 1875)
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Gossip isn’t scandal and it’s not merely malicious. It’s chatter about the human race by lovers of the same. Gossip is the tool of the poet, the shop-talk of the scientist, and the consolation of the housewife, wit, tycoon and intellectual. It begins in the nursery and ends when speech is past.
Phyllis McGinley (1905–1978) American author, poet
“A New Year and No Resolutions,” Woman’s Home Companion (Jan 1957)
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Mr. Khrushchev says that Communism, the police state, will bury the free ones. He is a smart gentleman, he knows that this is nonsense since freedom, man’s dim concept of and belief in the human spirit is the cause of all his troubles in his own country. But if he means that Communism will bury capitalism, he is correct. That funeral will occur about ten minutes after the police bury gambling. Because simple man, the human race, will bury both of them. That will be when we have expended the last grain, dram, and iota of our natural resources. But man himself will not be in that grave. The last sound on the worthless earth will be two human beings trying to launch a homemade spaceship and already quarreling about where they are going next.
William Faulkner (1897–1962) American novelist
Speech to the UNESCO Commission, New York (1959)
Quoted in The New York Times (3 Oct 1959)
Prudent men are in the habit of saying — and not by chance or without basis — that he who wishes to see what is to come should observe what has already happened, because all the affairs of the world, in every age, have their individual counterparts in ancient times. The reason for this is that since they are carried on by men, who have and always have had the same passions, of necessity the same results appear.
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) Italian politician, philosopher, political scientist
The Discourses on Livy, Book 3, ch. 43 (1517) [tr. Gilbert (1958)]
(Source)
Other translations: "The wise are wont to say, and not without reason or at random, that he who would forecast what is about to happen should look to what has been; since all human events, whether present or to come, have their exact counterpart in the past. And this, because these events are brought about by men, whose passions and dispositions remaining in all ages the same naturally give rise to the same effects." [tr. Thomson]
I see men assassinated around me every day. I walk through rooms of the dead, streets of the dead, cities of the dead: men without eyes, men without voices; men with manufactured feelings and standard reactions; men with newspaper brains, television souls and high school ideals.
Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) German-American author, poet
Sunlight Here I Am: Interviews and Encounters, 1963-1993 (2003)
(Source)
When asked his reaction to the assassination of John Kennedy.
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
H. G. Wells (1866–1946) British writer [Herbert George Wells]
The Outline of History, Vol. 2, ch. 41, sec. 4 (1921)
(Source)
Also attributed to Wells: "Civilization is in a race between education and catastrophe. Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide as our circumstances allow. For the truth is the greatest weapon we have."
Certainly it is presumptuous to say that we cannot improve, and that Man, who has only been in power for a few thousand years, will never learn to make use of his power. All I mean is that, if people continue to kill one another as they do, the world cannot get better than it is, and that, since there are more people than formerly, and their means for destroying one another superior, the world may well get worse. What is good in people — and consequently in the world — is their insistence on creation, their belief in friendship and loyalty for their own sakes; and, though Violence remains and is, indeed, the major partner in this muddled establishment, I believe that creativeness remains too, and will always assume direction when violence sleeps.
E. M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist, essayist, critic, librettist [Edward Morgan Forster]
“What I Believe,” The Nation (16 Jul 1938)
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Man is a gaming animal. He must be always trying to get the better in something or other.
Charles Lamb (1775–1834) Welsh-English essayist
“Mrs. Battle’s Opinions on Whist,” The Essays of Elia (1823)
I was often humiliated to see men disputing for a piece of bread, just as animals might have done. My feelings on this subject have very much altered since I have been personally exposed to the tortures of hunger. I have discovered, in fact, that a man, whatever may have been his origin, his education, and his habits, is governed, under certain circumstances, much more by his stomach than by his intelligence and his heart.
François Arago (1786–1853) French Catalan mathematician, physicist, astronomer, politician
Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men, “The History of My Youth” (1859) [tr. Smyth, Powell, Grant]
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Man is a reasoning animal. Therefore, man’s highest good is attained if he has fulfilled the good for which nature designed him at birth. And what is it which this reason demands of him? The easiest thing in the world — to live in accordance with his nature. But this has turned into a hard task by the general madness of mankind; we push one
another into vice.Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Letters to Lucilius, Letter 41 (c. 65 AD)
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It is our firm belief that if souls were visible to the eye we should clearly see that strange thing whereby every single member of the human species corresponds to some species of the animal world. And we would easily be able to recognize that truth barely apprehended by the philosopher, which is that, from the oyster to the eagle, from the pig to the tiger, all animals are to be found in mankind, and each one of them is to be found in some man. Sometimes even several at a time.
[Dans notre conviction, si les âmes étaient visibles aux yeux, on verrait distinctement cette chose étrange que chacun des individus de l’espèce humaine correspond à quelqu’une des espèces de la création animale ; et l’on pourrait reconnaître aisément cette vérité à peine entrevue par le penseur, que, depuis l’huître jusqu’à l’aigle, depuis le porc jusqu’au tigre, tous les animaux sont dans l’homme et que chacun d’eux est dans un homme. Quelquefois même plusieurs d’entre eux à la fois.]
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French writer, journalist, human rights activist, politician
Les Misérables, Part 1 “Fantine,” Book 5 “The Descent,” ch. 5 (1.5.5) (1862) [tr. Donougher (2013)]
(Source)
Commentary while introducing Javert (whose "animal" is the one wolf born in each litter which is killed by the mother so that he does not kill the others).
(Source (French)). Other translations:It is our conviction that if souls were visible to the eyes, we should be able to see distinctly that strange thing, that each one individual of the human race corresponds to some one of the species of the animal creation; and we could easily recognize this truth, hardly perceived by the thinker, that from the oyster to the eagle, from the pig to the tiger, all animals exist in man, and that in each one of them is in a man. Sometimes even several of them at a time.
[tr. Wilbour (1862)]In our conviction, if souls were visible we should distinctly see the strange fact that every individual of the human species corresponds to some one of the species of animal creation; and we might easily recognize the truth, which has as yet scarce occurred to the thinker, that, from the oyster to the eagle, from the hog to the tiger, all animals are in man, and that each of them is in a man; at times, several of them at once.
[tr. Wraxall (1862)]It is our conviction that if souls were visible to the eyes, we should be able to see distinctly that strange thing that each one individual of the human race corresponds to some one of the species of the animal creation; and we could easily recognize this truth, hardly perceived by the thinker, that from the oyster to the eagle, from the pig to the tiger, all animals exist in man, and that each one of them is in a man. Sometimes even several of them at a time.
[tr. Hapgood (1887)]It is our belief that if the soul were visible to the eye every member of the human species would be seen to correspond to some species of the animal world and a truth scarcely perceived by thinkers would be readily confirmed, namely, that from the oyster to the eagle, from the swine to the tiger, all animals are to be found in men and each of them exists in some man, sometimes several at a time.
[tr. Denny (1976)]It is our belief that if the soul were visible to the eye, every member of the human species would be seen to correspond to some species of the animal world, and a truth scarcely perceived by thinkers would be readily confirmed, namely, that from the oyster to the eagle, from the swine to the tiger, all animals are to be found in men and each of them exists in some man, sometimes several at a time.
[tr. Wilbour/Fahnestock/MacAfee (1987)]
The security of society lies in custom and unconscious instinct, and the basis of the stability of society, as a healthy organism, is the complete absence of any intelligence amongst its members. The great majority of people being aware of this, rank themselves naturally on the side of that splendid system that elevates them to the dignity of machines, and rage so wildly against the intrusion of the intellectual faculty into any question that concerns life, that one is tempted to define man as a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish poet, wit, dramatist
“The Critic as Artist,” Intentions (1891)
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We are, perhaps uniquely among the earth’s creatures, the worrying animal. We worry away our lives, fearing the future, discontent with the present, unable to take in the idea of dying, unable to sit still.
Lewis Thomas (1913–1993) American physician, poet, essayist, researcher
“The Youngest and Brightest Thing Around,” The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher (1979)
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The authentic human being is one of us who instinctively knows what he should not do and, in addition, will balk at doing it. He will refuse to do it, even if this brings down dread consequences to him and those whom he loves. This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people. They say “no” to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance. Their deeds may be small, and almost always unnoticed, unmarked by history. Their names are not remembered, nor did these authentic humans expect their names to be remembered. I see their authenticity in an odd way: not in their willingness to perform great heroic deeds, but in their quiet refusals to commit villainies. In essence, they cannot be compelled to be what they are not.
Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) American writer
Speech (1978) “How To Build A Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later”
(Source)
First collected in Dick's I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon (1985) [ed. Mark Hurst and Paul Williams], where it serves as the introduction.
Lawrence Sutin, editor of The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick (1995) (where this is reprinted) suggests this speech was "likely never delivered."
People don’t alter history any more than birds alter the sky, they just make brief patterns in it.
For a conscious being, to exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.
Henri-Louis Bergson (1859–1941) French philosopher
Creative Evolution, ch. 1 (1907) [tr. Mitchell (1911)]
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At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique human being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is ever be put together a second time.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher and poet
“Schopenhauer as Educator,” ch. 1 (1874) [tr. Collins]
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Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours its own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich upon the poor.
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801–09)
Letter (1787-01-16) to Edward Carrington
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It can truly be said: Men are the devils of the earth, and the animals are the tormented souls.
[Man möchte wahrlich sagen: die Menschen sind die Teufel der Erde und die Tiere die geplagten Seelen]
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher
Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. 2, ch. 15 “On Religion [Ueber Religion], § 179 “The Christian System [Über das Christenthum]” (1851) [tr. Hollingdale (1970)]
(Source)
(Source (German)). Other translation:One might say with truth, Mankind are the devils of the earth, and the animals the souls they torment.
[tr. Saunders (1890)]
Phryne was feeling most displeased with a species to which, she reminded herself, she belonged. She took an egg sandwich and a gulp of tea and strove to adjust her philosophy.
Kerry Greenwood (b. 1954) Australian author and lawyer
Phryne Fisher, Book 8, Urn Burial (1996)
Tolerance, good temper and sympathy — they are what matter really, and if the human race is not to collapse they must come to the front before long.
E. M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist, essayist, critic, librettist [Edward Morgan Forster]
“What I Believe,” The Nation (16 Jul 1938)
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I look at some of the great novelists, and I think the reason they are great is that they’re telling the truth. The fact is they’re using made-up names, made-up people, made-up places, and made-up times, but they’’re telling the truth about the human being — what we are capable of, what makes us lose, laugh, weep, fall down, and gnash our teeth and wring our hands and kill each other and love each other.
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American poet, memoirist, activist [b. Marguerite Ann Johnson]
“The Art of Fiction,” Paris Review, #116, Interview with George Plimpton (1990)
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Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind then that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; and while there is a criminal element, I am of it; and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American union leader, activist, socialist, politician
Statement to the Court (1918-09-18)
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On being convicted of sedition for urging resistance to the draft. Often paraphrased:As long as there is a lower class, I am in it. As long as there is a criminal element, I am of it. As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
Man is a clever animal, who behaves like an imbecile.
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) Alsatian philosopher, physician, philanthropist, polymath
(Attributed)
Yet there is still this difference between man and all other animals — he is the only animal whose desires increase as they are fed; the only animal that is never satisfied.
Man is a successful animal, that’s all.
Remy de Gourmont (1858–1915) French poet, novelist, critic
Promenades Philosophiques (1908)
Other translations: "Man is merely a successful animal."
A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.
Alain de Botton (b. 1969) Swiss-British author
The Consolations of Philosophy, ch. 4 “Consolation for Inadequacy” (2000)
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Summarizing Montaigne.
Man is the only animal who does not feel at home in nature, who can feel evicted from paradise, the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem that he has to solve and from which he cannot escape.
Erich Fromm (1900–1980) American psychoanalyst and social philosopher
The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, ch. 10 (1973)
(Source)
Sometimes elided, "Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem he has to solve."
Man is a social animal who dislikes his fellow man.
[L’homme es un animal sociable qui déteste ses semblables.]
Eugène Delacroix (1799–1863) French painter [Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix]
The Journal of Eugène Delacroix, 17 November 1852 (1951)
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Man is a talking animal and he will always let himself be swayed by the power of the word.
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French author, existentialist philosopher, feminist theorist
Les Belles Images (1966)
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But man is a Noble Animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing Nativities and Deaths with equall lustre, nor omitting Ceremonies of bravery, in the infamy of his nature.
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) English physician and author
Hydriotaphia, or Urne-Buriall, ch. 5 (1658)
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Every man has a certain sphere of discretion, which he has a right to expect shall not be infringed by his neighbors. This right flows from the very nature of man. First, all men are fallible: no man can be justified in setting up his judgment as a standard for others. We have no infallible judge of controversies; each man in his own apprehension is right in his decisions; and we can find no satisfactory mode of adjusting their jarring pretensions. If every one be desirous of imposing his sense upon others, it will at last come to be a controversy, not of reason, but of force.
William Godwin (1756–1836) English journalist, political philosopher, novelist
Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Book 2, ch. 5 (1793)
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The best aphorisms are pointed expressions of the results of observation, experience, and reflection. They are portable wisdom, the quintessential extracts of thought and feeling. They furnish the largest amount of intellectual stimulus and nutriment in the smallest compass. About every weak point in human nature, or vicious spot in human life, there is deposited a crystallization of warning and protective proverbs.
William Rounseville Alger (1822–1905) American writer, minister, translator
“The Utility and the Futility of Aphorisms,” Atlantic Monthly (Feb 1863)
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Often paraphrased, "Aphorisms are portable wisdom."
Man is a military animal,
Glories in gunpowder, and loves parade;
Prefers them to all things.Philip James Bailey (1816–1902) English poet, lawyer
Festus, Sc. “A Metropolis – Public Place” [Lucifer] (1839)
(Source)
Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul
When hot for certainties in this our life!
I also think living in the country gives you faith. All you have to do is get up and look at the mountains and look at the other animals to realize that your problems are mostly made up or exacerbated by humans. But human life isn’t necessarily life. There’s so much more out there.
O woman! lovely woman! Nature made thee
To temper man: we had been brutes without you.
Angels are painted fair, to look like you:
There’s in you all that we believe of heaven, —
Amazing brightness, purity, and truth,
Eternal joy, and everlasting love.
Love would put a new face on this weary old world in which we dwell as pagans and enemies too long.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Man the Reformer,” lecture, Boston (1841-01-25)
(Source)
A bookstore is one of the only pieces of physical evidence we have that people are still thinking.
Jerry Seinfeld (b. 1954) American comedian
SeinLanguage (1993)
There comes now and then a bolder spirit, I should rather say, a more surrendered soul, more informed and led by God, which is much in advance of the rest, quite beyond their sympathy, but predicts what shall soon be the general fullness; as when we stand by the seashore, whilst the tide is coming in, a wave comes up the beach far higher than any foregoing one, and recedes; and for a long while none comes up to that mark; but after some time the whole sea is there and beyond it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Lecture on the Times,” Boston (1841-12-02)
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A man is a god in ruins.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Nature,” ch. 8, Nature: Addresses and Lectures (1849)
(Source)
Of human knowledge as a whole and in every branch of it, by far the largest part exists nowhere but on paper, — I mean, in books, that paper memory of mankind.
[Von dem menschlichen Wissen überhaupt, in jeder Art, existirt der allergrößte Theil stets nur auf dem Papier, in den Büchern, diesem papiernen Gedächtniß der Menschheit.]
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher
Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. 2, ch. 21 “On Learning and the Learned [Über Gelehrsamkeit und Gelharte],” § 254 (1851) [tr. Saunders (1890)]
(Source)
(Source (German)). Other translation:Of human knowledge in general and in every branch thereof, by far the greatest part exists always only on paper, in books, this paper-memory of mankind.
[tr. Payne (1974)]
If a man is not rising upwards to be an angel, depend upon it, he is sinking downwards to be a devil. He cannot stop at the beast. The most savage of men are not beasts; they are worse, a great deal worse.
What Man seeks, to the point of anguish, in his gods, in his art, in his science, is meaning. He cannot bear the void. He pours meaning on events like salt on his food. He denies that life bounces along at random, at the mercy of events, in sound and in fury. He wants it always to be directed, aimed toward a goal, like an arrow.
François Jacob (1920–2013) French biologist, Nobel prize winner in Medicine
The Statue Within: An Autobiography (1987) [tr. Philip (1988)]
(Source)
The Abilities of Man must fall short on one side or other, like too scanty a Blanket when you are a-bed. If you pull it upon your Shoulders, you leave your Feet bare; if you thrust it down upon your Feet, your Shoulders are uncovered.
William Temple, 1st Baronet Temple (1628–1699) English statesman and essayist.
Miscellanea (1705)
(Source)
But in the main, I feel like a brown bag of miscellany propped against a wall. Against a wall in company with other bags, white, red and yellow. Pour out the contents, and there is discovered a jumble of small things priceless and worthless. A first-water diamond, an empty spool, bits of broken glass, lengths of string, a key to a door long since crumbled away, a rusty knife-blade, old shoes saved for a road that never was and never will be, a nail bent under the weight of things too heavy for any nail, a dried flower or two still a little fragrant.
In your hand is the brown bag. On the ground before you is the jumble it held — so much like the jumble in the bags, could they be emptied, that all might be dumped in a single heap and the bags refilled without altering the content of any greatly. A bit of colored glass more or less would not matter. Perhaps that is how the Great Stuffer of Bags filled them in the first place — who knows?
Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) American writer, folklorist, anthropologist
“How It Feels to Be Colored Me”, The World Tomorrow (May 1928)
(Source)
Fools! who fancy Christ mistaken;
Man a tool to buy and sell;
Earth a failure, God-forsaken,
Ante-room of Hell.Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian, essayist, novelist (pseud. "Parson Lot")
“The World’s Age” (1849)
(Source)
I don’t think the boy of lively mind is hurt much by going to college. If he encounters mainly jackasses, then he learns the useful lesson that this is a jackass world.
H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
“Editorial,” The American Mercury (April 1926)
(Source)
Reprinted in Prejudices: Sixth Series (1927).
We’re animals. We’re born like every other mammal and we live our whole lives around disguised animal thoughts.
Barbara Kingsolver (b. 1955) American novelist, essayist, poet
Animal Dreams (1990)
Gods always behave like the people who make them.
Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) American writer, folklorist, anthropologist
Tell My Horse, ch. 15 (1938)
It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.
Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855) British novelist [pseud. Currer Bell]
Jane Eyre, ch. 12 [Jane] (1847)
(Source)
It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone — that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows more than any man of, say, the Eighteenth Century, and is far more civilized. This assumption is quite erroneous. The men of the educated minority, no doubt, know more than their predecessors, and some of them, perhaps, it may be said that they are more civilized — though I should not like to be put to giving names — but the great masses of men, even in this inspired republic, are precisely where the mob was at the dawn of history. They are ignorant, they are dishonest, they are cowardly, they are ignoble. They know little if anything that is worth knowing, and there is not the slightest sign of a natural desire among them to increase their knowledge.
H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
“Homo Neandertalensis,” Baltimore Evening Sun (29 Jun 1925)
(Source)
All of God’s children are not beautiful. Most of God’s children are, in fact, barely presentable.
The process which, if not checked, will abolish Man goes on apace among Communists and Democrats no less than among Fascists. The methods may (at first) differ in brutality. But many a mild-eyed scientist in pince-nez, many a popular dramatist, many an amateur philosopher in our midst, means in the long run just the same as the Nazi rulers of Germany: ‘Traditional values are to be debunked’ and mankind to be cut out into some fresh shape at the will (which must, by hypothesis, be an arbitrary will) of some few lucky people in one lucky generation which has learned how to do it.
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
The Abolition of Man (1943)
(Source)
If I thought of man as the final image of God, I should not know what to think of God. But when I consider that our ancestors, at a time fairly recent in relation to the earth’s history, were perfectly ordinary apes, closely related to chimpanzees, I see a glimmer of hope. It does not require very great optimism to assume that from us human beings something better and higher may evolve. Far from seeing in man the irrevocable and unsurpassable image of God, I assert — more modestly and, I believe, in greater awe of the Creation and its infinite possibilities — that the long-sought missing link between animals and the really humane being is ourselves!
Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989) Austrian zoologist, ethologist, ornithologist
On Aggression, ch. 12 “On the Virtue of Scientific Humility” (1963)
(Source)
We are the highest achievement reached so far by the great constructors of evolution. We are their “latest” but certainly not their last word. The scientist must not regard anything as absolute, not even the laws of pure reason. He must remain aware of the great fact, discovered by Heraclitus, that nothing whatever really remains the same even for one moment, but that everything is perpetually changing. To regard man, the most ephemeral and rapidly evolving of all species, as the final and unsurpassable achievement of creation, especially at his present-day particularly dangerous and disagreeable stage of development, is certainly the most arrogant and dangerous of all untenable doctrines.
Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989) Austrian zoologist, ethologist, ornithologist
On Aggression, ch. 12 “On the Virtue of Scientific Humility” (1963)
(Source)
And the great danger facing us today is not so much the atomic bomb that was created by physical science. Not so much that atomic bomb that you can put in an aeroplane and drop on the heads of hundreds and thousands of people — as dangerous as that is. But the real danger confronting civilization today is that atomic bomb which lies in the hearts and souls of men, capable of exploding into the vilest of hate and into the most damaging selfishness — that’s the atomic bomb that we’ve got to fear today. Problem is with the men. Within the heart and the souls of men. That is the real basis of our problem.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
“Rediscovering Lost Values,” Sermon, Second Baptist Church, Detroit (28 Feb 1954)
(Source)
Man is man because he is free to operate within the framework of his destiny. He is free to deliberate, to make decisions, and to choose between alternatives. He is distinguished from animals by his freedom to do evil or to do good and to walk the high road of beauty or tread the low road of ugly degeneracy.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
The Measures of Man (1959)
That sort of thing wears thin — for when one’s cynicism becomes perfect and absolute, there’s no longer anything amusing in the stupidity and hypocrisy of the herd. It is all to be expected — what else could human nature produce? — so irony annuls itself by means of its own victories!
H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American fabulist [Howard Phillips Lovecraft]
Letter to August W. Derleth (Jan 1928)
Regarding Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary.
There is something wrong with our world, something fundamentally and basically wrong. I don’t think we have to look too far to see that. I’m sure that most of you would agree with me in making that assertion. And when we stop to analyze the cause of our world’s ills, many things come to mind. We begin to wonder if it is due to the fact that we don’t know enough. But it can’t be that. Because in terms of accumulated knowledge we know more today than men have known in any period of human history. We have the facts at our disposal. We know more about mathematics, about science, about social science, and philosophy than we’ve ever known in any period of the world’s history. So it can’t be because we don’t know enough. And then we wonder if it is due to the fact that our scientific genius lags behind. That is, if we have not made enough progress scientifically. Well then, it can’t be that. For our scientific progress over the past years has been amazing. Man through his scientific genius has been able to warp distance and place time in chains, so that today it’s possible to eat breakfast in New York City and supper in London, England. Back in about 1753 it took a letter three days to go from New York City to Washington, and today you can go from here to China in less time than that. It can’t be because man is stagnant in his scientific progress. Man’s scientific genius has been amazing. I think we have to look much deeper than that if we are to find the real cause of man’s problems and the real cause of the world’s ills today. If we are to really find it I think we will have to look in the hearts and souls of men.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
“Rediscovering Lost Values,” Sermon, Second Baptist Church, Detroit (28 Feb 1954)
(Source)
An individual has not begun to live until he can rise above the narrow horizons of his particular individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. And this is one of the big problems of life, that so many people never quite get to the point of rising above self. And so they end up the tragic victims of self-centeredness. They end up the victims of distorted and disrupted personality.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
“Conquering Self-Centeredness,” sermon, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama (11 Aug 1957)
(Source)
The process which, if not checked, will abolish Man goes on apace among Communists and Democrats no less than among Fascists. The methods may (at first) differ in brutality. But many a mild-eyed scientist in pince-nez, many a popular dramatist, many an amateur philosopher in our midst, means in the long run just the same as the Nazi rulers of Germany: ‘Traditional values are to be debunked’ and mankind to be cut out into some fresh shape at the will (which must, by hypothesis, be an arbitrary will) of some few lucky people in one lucky generation which has learned how to do it.
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
The Abolition of Man (1943)
Zealots were always hard. Zeal distorts them. Makes the normal impulses convolute. Makes people fearless and greedless and loveless and finally monstrous. I was against zeal. But being against it didn’t make it go away.
Robert B. Parker (1932–2010) American writer
Promised Land (1974)
Most people, no doubt, when they espouse human rights, make their own mental reservations about the proper application of the word “human.”
Suzanne La Follette (1893–1983) American journalist, author, feminist
Concerning Women, “The Beginnings of Emancipation” (1926)
(Source)
Dissent is the native activity of the scientist, and it has got him into a good deal of trouble in the last years. But if that is cut off, what is left will not be a scientist. And I doubt whether it will be a man.
Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-English humanist and mathematician
Lecture, MIT (19 Mar 1953)
(Source)
Reprinted as Science and Human Values, Part 3, sec. 5 "The Sense of Human Dignity" (1961).
The power to become habituated to his surroundings is a marked characteristic of mankind.
John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) English economist
The Economic Consequences of the Peace, ch. 1 (1919)
(Source)
The world either breaks or hardens the heart.
[En vivant et en voyant les hommes, il faut que le cœur se briese ou se bronze.]
Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer, epigrammist (b. Nicolas-Sébastien Roch)
Products of Perfected Civilization [Produits de la Civilisation Perfectionnée], Part 2 “Characters and Anecdotes [Caractères et Anecdotes],” ch. 3 (frag. 771) (1795) [tr. Finod (1880)]
(Source)
(Source (French))
Attributed by Chamfort as a statement in a philosophical debate, made by "M. D---". Finod's translation is very much a paraphrase, as is:Contact with the world either breaks or hardens the heart.
[ed. Ballou (1882)]
More literal translations:Living among men and observing them, the heart must either break or turn to bronze.
[tr. Merwin (1969)]In living and in seeing men, the heart must break or be bronzed.
[Source]
Though attributed by Chamfort to "M. D----," he also used the phrase himself, and it is usually attributed to him. Toward the end of his life, he wrote:Je m'en vais enfin, de ce monde où il faut que le cœur se briese ou se bronze.
[I am leaving at last from this world where the heart must break or become bronze.]
GERVAIS: Whenever I do a thing about animals, there’s always someone that goes, “What about children dying in Syria?” Yeah, that’s bad, too — can’t we care about both? Sometimes I go, “You carry on all your good work for the fucking children in Syria, and I’ll do this.” I love the fact that there’s a hierarchy of things that you’ve got to care about. I tweeted “I love humans — they’re just not my favorite animal.” That was to annoy people.
GQ: True, though?
GERVAIS: No, I’m not a maniac. Of course humans are my favorite animal. [pauses] But I’ve never met an animal who was a cunt.
Ricky Gervais (b. 1961) English comedian, actor, director, writer
Interview with Chris Heath, GQ (15 May 2013)
(Source)
An optimist isn’t necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) American historian, academic, author, social activist
Essay (2004-09-02), “The Optimism of Uncertainty,” The Nation
(Source)
Adopted from Zinn's essay of the same name in Paul Loeb (ed.), The Impossible Will Take a Little While (2004). See also Zinn, "A Marvelous Victory" (2004-02-23).
To be a human being means to possess a feeling of inferiority which constantly presses towards its own conquest. … The greater the feeling of inferiority that has been experienced, the more powerful is the urge for conquest and the more violent the emotional agitation.
Alfred Adler (1870–1937) Austrian psychologist
The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler, ch. 3, sec 3 (1956) [ed. Ansbacher]
He who has so little knowledge of human nature, as to seek happiness by changing any thing but his own dispositions, will waste his life in fruitless efforts, and multiply the griefs which he purposes to remove.
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Essay (1750-04-07), The Rambler, No. 6
(Source)
What Darwin was too polite to say, my friends, is that we came to rule the Earth not because we were the smartest, or even the meanest, but because we have always been the craziest, most murderous motherfuckers in the jungle.
Stephen King (b. 1947) American author
Cell, “Gaiten Academy,” ch. 16 (2006)
Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.
Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman, orator, philosopher
Letters on a Regicide Peace, Vol. 5, Letter 1 (1796)
Yes, yes, we are taught to fly in the air like birds, and to swim in the water like the fishes; but how to live on the earth we don’t know.
Maxim Gorky (1868–1936) Russian writer [b. Alexei Maximovich Peshkov]
(Attributed)
Quoting a Russian peasant on progress; cited in Lothrop Soddard, Social Classes in Post-War Europe (1925).
Quoted later by Martin Luther King, Jr., in "The Man Who Was a Fool," Strength to Love (1963): "We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers"; he used the same phrase in his Nobel Peace Prize lecture (1964).
Variant: "Now that we have learned to fly the air like birds, swim under water like fish, we lack one thing—to learn to live on earth as human beings."
Sometimes misattributed to George Bernard Shaw. See here for more information.
Whether you believe that life evolved over billions of years or God made everything, you can’t justify torturing an animal for a shampoo.
The truest American president we have ever had, the companion of Washington in our love and honor, recognized that the poorest man, however outraged, however ignorant, however despised, however black, was, as a man, his equal. The child of the American people was their most prophetic man, because, whether as small shop-keeper, as flat-boatman, as volunteer captain, as honest lawyer, as defender of the Declaration, as President of the United States, he knew by the profoundest instinct and the widest experience and reflection, that in the most vital faith of this country it is just as honorable for an honest man to curry a horse and black a boot as it is to raise cotton or corn, to sell molasses or cloth, to practice medicine or law, to gamble in stocks or speculate in petroleum. He knew the European doctrine that the king makes the gentleman; but he believed with his whole soul the doctrine, the American doctrine, that worth makes the man.
George William Curtis (1824–1892) American essayist, editor, reformer, orator
“The Good Fight” (1865)
(Source)
The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall; nations perish; civilizations grow old and die out; and, after an era of darkness, new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again, and yet live on, still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men’s hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead.
Clarence Day (1874–1935) American author and cartoonist
The Story of the Yale University Press, ch. 2 (1920)
(Source)
In spite of every sage whom Greece can show,
Unerring wisdom never dwelt below;
Folly in all of every age we see,
The only difference lies in the degree.[N’en déplaise à ces fous nommés sages de Grèce,
En ce monde il n’est point de parfaite sagesse :
Tous les hommes sont fous, et, malgré tous leurs soins,
Ne diffèrenet entre eux que du plus ou du moins.]Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636–1711) French poet and critic
Satires, Satire 4, l. 37 (1716)
Kull was still mazed. “But being a wizard, having knowledge of all the ages and despising gold, glory, and position, what could Kaanuub offer Tuzun Thune that would make of him a foul traitor?”
“Gold, power, and position,” grunted Brule. “The sooner you learn that men are men whether wizard, king, or thrall, the better you will rule, Kull.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author
“The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune” (1929)
Imagining what it is like to be someone other than yourself is at the core of our humanity. It is the essence of compassion, and it is the beginning of morality.
Ian McEwan (b. 1948) English novelist and screenwriter
“Only love and then oblivion,” The Guardian (15 Sep 2001)
(Source)
I know your race. It is made up of sheep. It is governed by minorities, seldom or never by majorities. It suppresses its feelings and its beliefs and follows the handful that makes the most noise. Sometimes the noisy handful is right, sometimes wrong; but no matter, the crowd follows it. The vast majority of the race, whether savage or civilized, are secretly kind-hearted and shrink from inflicting pain, but in the presence of the aggressive and pitiless minority they don’t dare to assert themselves. Think of it! One kind-hearted creature spies upon another, and sees to it that he loyally helps in iniquities which revolt both of them. Speaking as an expert, I know that ninety-nine out of a hundred of your race were strongly against the killing of witches when that foolishness was first agitated by a handful of pious lunatics in the long ago. And I know that even to-day, after ages of transmitted prejudice and silly teaching, only one person in twenty puts any real heart into the harrying of a witch. And yet apparently everybody hates witches and wants them killed. Some day a handful will rise up on the other side and make the most noise — perhaps even a single daring man with a big voice and a determined front will do it — and in a week all the sheep will wheel and follow him, and witch-hunting will come to a sudden end.
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
The Mysterious Stranger, ch. 9 (1916)
Popular reason does not always know how to act right, nor does it always act right when it knows.
Fisher Ames (1758–1808) American politician, orator
“No Revolutionist,” The Palladium (Nov 1801)
(Source)
It is a profound mistake to imagine that Christianity ever intended to dissipate the bewilderment and even the terror, the sense of our own nothingness, which come upon us when we think about the nature of things. It comes to intensify them. Without such sensations there is no religion. Many a man, brought up in the glib profession of some shallow form of Christianity, who comes through reading Astronomy to realise for the first time how majestically indifferent most reality is to man, and who perhaps abandons his religion on that account, may at that moment be having his first genuinely religious experience.
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
Miracles (1947)
The Earth does not want new continents, but new men.
[Ce ne sont pas de nouveaux continents qu’il faut à la terre, mais de nouveaux hommes!]
Jules Verne (1828–1905) French novelist, poet, playwright
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Part 1, ch. 18 “Vanikoro” (1870) [tr. Smith & Co. (1873)]
(Source)
Ch. 19 in the French text.
Alt. trans.: "The planet doesn't need new continents, it needs new men." [Miller (1966)]
Although we tend to think about saints as holy and pious, and picture them with halos above their heads and ecstatic gazes, true saints are much more accessible. They are men and women like us, who live ordinary lives and struggle with ordinary problems. What makes them saints is their clear and unwavering focus on God and God’s people.
Henri Nouwen (1932–1996) Dutch Catholic priest and writer
Bread for the Journey (1996)
The world is full of fools, and he who would not wish to see one must not only shut himself up alone, but also break his looking glass.
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636–1711) French poet and critic
(Attributed)
A variant is also attributed to Charles le Petit (1640-1625), Discours satiriques (1686).
Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them — if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry.
J. D. Salinger (1919–2010) American writer [Jerome David Salinger]
Catcher in the Rye, ch. 24 [Mr. Antolini] (1951)
There is a capacity of virtue in us, and there is a capacity of vice to make your blood creep.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1831)
I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.
Giuseppe Baretti (1719–1789) Italian-English literary critic and translator [a.k.a. Joseph Baretti]
(Attributed)
Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791).
The pleasure arising from an extraordinary agitation of the mind is frequently so great as to stifle humanity; hence arises the entertainment of the common people at executions, and of the better sort at tragedies.
Jean-Antoine Dubois (1765–1848) French Catholic missionary in India [Abbe J. A. Dubois]
(Attributed)
Human nature is so constituted, that all see and judge better in the affairs of other men than in their own.
Terence (186?-159 BC) African-Roman dramatist [Publius Terentius Afer]
(Attributed)
If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years.
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Interview by Seth King, New York Times (1961-05-18)
Interview on his 89th Birthday. The article does not presently show up in the NYT archives, but the quotation is mentioned in Newsweek, "Newsmakers" (1961-05-29), and in Think Magazine, "Thoughts" (1961-12).
And why does this same God tell me how to raise my children when he had to drown his?
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833–1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Some Mistakes of Moses, Sec. 18 “Dampness” (1879)
(Source)
A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasure of his species must become his own. The great instrument of moral good is the imagination; and poetry administers to the effect by acting upon the cause.
Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to.
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Following the Equator, ch. 27, epigraph (1897)
(Source)
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit — immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn: We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously — no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner — no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat — the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
“The Weight of Glory,” sermon, Oxford University Church of St Mary the Virgin (8 Jun 1941)
I think that’s all anybody wants. To belong. To be people.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American writer
Friday [Friday Jones] (1982)
HAMLET: Use every man after his desert, and who should ‘scape whipping?
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, Act 2, sc. 2, l. 555ff (2.2.555) (c. 1600)
(Source)
It’s silly to go on pretending that under the skin we are all brothers. The truth is more likely that under the skin we are all cannibals, assassins, traitors, liars, hypocrites, poltroons.
Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist
“Two Writers in Praise of Rabelais and Each Other,” New York Times (7 Sep 1974)
(Source)
The high sentiments always win in the end, the leaders who offer blood, toil, tears, and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.
The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.
John Buchan (1875–1940) Scottish novelist, poet, and politician; Governor-General of Canada (1935 -1940)
Montrose and Leadership (1930)
The world is a great sculptor’s shop. We are the statues and there is a rumor going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life.
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
Mere Christianity, rev. ed., 4.1 (1952)
The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves — in their separate, and individual capacities. In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere.
The desirable things which the individuals of a people can not do, or can not well do, for themselves, fall into two classes: those which have relation to wrongs, and those which have not. Each of these branch off into an infinite variety of subdivisions. The first — that in relation to wrongs — embraces all crimes, misdemeanors, and non-performance of contracts. The other embraces all which, in its nature, and without wrong, requires combined action, as public roads and highways, public schools, charities, pauperism, orphanage, estates of the deceased, and the machinery of government itself.
From this it appears that if all men were just, there still would be some, though not so much, need of government.Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861–65)
Speech (1854-07-01?), fragment on government
(Source)
The date was assigned (arbitrarily?) to the fragment by Nicolay and Hay. The speech or lecture it was written for is not recorded.
Human nature is at once sublime and horrible, holy and satanic. Apart from the accumulation of knowledge and experience, which are external and precarious acquisitions, there is no proof that we have changed much since the first stone age.
William Ralph Inge (1860–1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
“Our Present Discontents,” Outspoken Essays: First Series (1919)
It is not by wearing down into uniformity all that is individual in themselves, but by cultivating it and calling it forth, within the limits imposed by the rights and interests of others, that human beings become a noble and beautiful object of contemplation; and as the works partake the character of those who do them, by the same process human life also becomes rich, diversified, and animating, furnishing more abundant aliment to high thoughts and elevating feelings, and strengthening the tie which binds every individual to the race, by making the race infinitely better worth belonging to. In proportion to the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable to himself, and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others
John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) English philosopher and economist
On Liberty, ch. 3 “Of Individuality, as One of the Elements of Well-Being” (1859)
The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All of us. “But, Father, this is not Catholic! He cannot do good.” Yes, he can. He must. Not can: must! Because he has this commandment within him. Instead, this “closing off” that imagines that those outside, everyone, cannot do good is a wall that leads to war and also to what some people throughout history have conceived of: killing in the name of God. That we can kill in the name of God. And that, simply, is blasphemy. To say that you can kill in the name of God is blasphemy.
Francis I (1936–2025) Argentinian Catholic Pope (2013–2025) [b. Jorge Mario Bergoglio]
Homily (22 May 2013)
(Source)
Beneath the dingy uniformity of international fashions in dress, man remains what he has always been — a splendid fighting animal, a self-sacrificing hero, and a bloodthirsty savage.
William Ralph Inge (1860–1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
“Our Present Discontents,” Outspoken Essays: First Series (1919)
Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher
“Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose [Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht]” (1784)
It may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.Bob Dylan (b. 1941) American singer, songwriter
“Gotta Serve Somebody” (1979)
Though all men be made of one metal, yet they be not cast all in one mold.
John Lyly (c. 1553–1606) was an English writer [also Lilly or Lylie]
Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit, “Euphues” (1579)
There is (usually) no crime in performing a jerk maneuver, or acting like a jerk. Everyone can, and has, acted like a jerk from time to time. It’s a regrettable but natural part of the human experience. But most people have the good sense to understand that acting like a jerk should not be a lifestyle choice, and that if you make it one, people will respond to you based on your choices.
John Scalzi (b. 1969) American writer
“Being a Jerk About the Hugos: Not as Effective a Strategy as You Might Think”, Whatever (blog) (24 Aug 2015)
(Source)
JEFF: Man is the only animal that learns by being hypocritical. He pretends to be polite and then, eventually, he becomes polite.
Jean Kerr (1922–2003) American author and playwright [b. Bridget Jean Collins]
Finishing Touches, Act 1 (1973)
(Source)
There ought not to be anything in the whole universe that man can’t poke his nose into — that’s the way we’re built and I assume that there’s some reason for it.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American writer
Methuselah’s Children [Lazarus Long] (1958)
Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only.
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher
Metaphysics of Morals [Metaphysik der Sitten], ch. 2 (1797) [tr. Beck (1969)]
Heroism is a model. It is worthwhile to the extent that it is useful. Humans are all full of glory and garbage, and to dwell too long on one or the other robs us of that very humanity.
Graham Ericsson (b. 1961) American technologist, writer, aphorist
Journal (2015-07-13)
We are all imperfect. We can not expect perfect government.
William Howard Taft (1857–1930) US President (1909–13) and Chief Justice (1921–1930)
Speech, Board of Trade and Chamber of Commerce, Washington, DC (8 May 1909)
We so want heroes, and we want to think that someone who is good and inspirational in some ways is good and inspirational in all ways — a dubious proposition even in modern times, let along fifty, a hundred, two hundred years ago or more. Which then lets us exercise that other instinctive desire: we so want villains ….
Graham Ericsson (b. 1961) American technologist, writer, aphorist
Journal (2015-07-06)
If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?
Abigail Adams (1744–1818) American correspondent, First Lady (1797–1801)
Letter to John Thaxter (29 Sep 1778)
It is better to be a beggar than ignorant; for a beggar only wants money, but an ignorant person wants humanity.
Aristippus of Cyrene (c. 435 – c. 356 BC) Cyrenaic philosopher, Hedonist
(Attributed)
I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature; and that power, whether vested in many or a few, is ever grasping, and, like the grave, cries, “Give, give!” The great fish swallow up the small; and he who is most strenuous for the rights of the people, when vested with power, is as eager after the prerogatives of government. You tell me of degrees of perfection to which human nature is capable of arriving, and I believe it, but at the same time lament that our admiration should arise from the scarcity of the instances.
Abigail Adams (1744–1818) American correspondent, First Lady (1797–1801)
Letter to John Adams (27 Nov 1775)
If the human animal has any value at all, he is too valuable to be property. If he has an inner dignity, he is much too proud to own other men. I don’t give a damn how scrubbed and perfumed he may be, a slave owner is subhuman.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American writer
Time Enough For Love [Lazarus Long] (1973)
The real problem of our existence lies in the fact that we ought to love one another, but do not.
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American theologian and clergyman
Christian Realism and Political Problems, ch. 8 (1953)
Man — who is he?
Too bad to be the work of God; too good for the work of chance![Der Mensch, wo ist er her?
Zu schlecht für einen Gott, zu gut fürs Ungefähr.]Gotthold Lessing (1729–1781) German playwright, philosopher, dramaturg, writer
Fragmente und Fabeln [Fragments and Fables], Fragment 6 “Die Religion” (1753)
As with many of his quotations, frequently misattributed to contemporary author Doris Lessing.
(Source (German)). Another translation:Man, whence is he?
Too bad to be the work of a god, too good for the work of chance.
[ed. Wood (1893)]
Come, clear the way, then, clear the way:
Blind creeds and kings have had their day.
Break the dead branches from the path;
Our hope is in the aftermath —
Our hope is in heroic men,
Star-led to build the world again.
To this Event the ages ran:
Make way for Brotherhood — make way for Man.Edwin Markham (1852–1940) American poet
“Brotherhood,” The Man with the Hoe and Other Poems (1899)
Since geometry is co-eternal with the divine mind before the birth of things, God himself served as his own model in creating the world (for what is there in God which is not God?), and he with his own image reached down to humanity.
Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) German astronomer
The Harmonies of the World [Harmonices Mundi], Book 4, ch. 1 (1618)
The way chosen by the United States was plainly marked by a few clear precepts, which govern its conduct in world affairs.
First: No people on earth can be held, as a people, to be enemy, for all humanity shares the common hunger for peace and fellowship and justice.
Second: No nation’s security and well-being can be lastingly achieved in isolation but only in effective cooperation with fellow-nations.
Third: Any nation’s right to form of government and an economic system of its own choosing is inalienable.
Fourth: Any nation’s attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible.
And fifth: A nation’s hope of lasting peace cannot be firmly based upon any race in armaments but rather upon just relations and honest understanding with all other nations.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general, US President (1953–61)
“The Chance for Peace,” speech to American Society of Newspaper Editors, Washington (16 Apr 1953)
Also known as the "Cross of Iron" speech.
Geometry is one and eternal shining in the mind of God. That share in it accorded to humans is one of the reasons that humanity is the image of God.
Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) German astronomer
The Harmonies of the World [Harmonices Mundi], Book 3, ch. 1 (1618)
Other translations:
- "Geometry, co-eternal with God and shining in the divine Mind, gave God the pattern ... by which he laid out the world so that it might be best and most beautiful and finally most like the Creator."
- "Geometry is one and eternal shining in the mind of God. That share in it accorded to men is one of the reasons that Man is the image of God."
All things pass in time. We are far less significant than we imagine ourselves to be. All that we are, all that we have wrought, is but a shadow, no matter how durable it may seem. One day, when the last man has breathed his last breath, the sun will shine, the mountains will stand, the rain will fall, the streams will whisper — and they will not miss him.
Let the great book of the world be your principal study.
Lord Chesterfield (1694–1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #249 (7 Apr 1751)
(Source)
Complete success alienates a man from his fellows, but suffering makes kinsmen of us all.
Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, businessman, philosopher
An American Bible [ed. Alice Hubbard] (1918)
BAKUNIN: Left to themselves people are noble, generous, uncorrupted. They’d create a completely new kind of society if only people weren’t so blind, stupid and selfish.
HERZEN: Is that the same people or different people?
BAKUNIN: The same people.Tom Stoppard (1937–2025) Czech-English playwright and screenwriter
The Coast of Utopia: Salvage (2002)
For at least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice, and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism, and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English novelist, essayist and critic
“Knowledge and Understanding,” Vedanta and the West (May-Jun 1956)
(Source)
Revision of a 1955 lecture given at the Vedanta Society of Southern California; this phrase, however, does not occur in it (the surrounding text is found around the 10:00 mark). Reprinted in Adonis and the Alphabet, and Other Essays (in the US Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, and Other Essays) (1956).
Our errors and our controversies, in the sphere of morality, arise sometimes from looking on men as though they could be altogether bad, or altogether good.
[Nos erreurs et nos divisions dans la morale viennent quelquefois de ce que nous considérons les hommes comme s’ils pouvaient être tout à fait vicieux ou tout à fait bons.]
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747) French moralist, essayist, soldier
Reflections and Maxims [Réflexions et maximes], # 31 (1746) [tr. Stevens (1940)]
(Source)
If there be, in any region of the universe, an order of moral agents living in society, whose reason is strong, whose passions and inclinations are moderate, and whose dispositions are turned to virtue, to such an order of happy beings, legislation, administration, and police, with the endlessly various and complicated apparatus of politics, must be in a great measure superfluous.
James Burgh (1714–1775) British politician and writer
Political Disquisitions, Book 1 “Of Government, briefly,” ch. 1 “Government by Laws and Sanctions, why necessary” (1774)
(Source)
Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself. Basically, it’s made up of two separate words — “mank” and “ind.” What do these words mean? It’s a mystery, and that’s why so is mankind.
Jack Handey (b. 1949) American humorist
Deeper Thoughts: All New, All Crispy (1993)
Body or mind, heart or soul, we’re all human, and we’re supposed to feel pain. You cut yourself off from it at your own risk.
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Small Favor (2008)
My own personal theory is that this is the very dawn of the world. We’re hardly more than an eyeblink away from the fall of Troy, and scarcely an interglaciation removed from the Altamira cave painters. We live in extremely interesting ancient times. I like this idea. It encourages us to be earnest and ingenious and brave, as befits ancestral peoples; but keeps us from deciding that because we don’t know all the answers, they must be unknowable and thus unprofitable to pursue.
“Fast and stupid is still stupid. It just gets to stupid a lot quicker than humans could on their own. Which, I admit, is an accomplishment,” she added, “because we’re pretty damn good at stupid.”
John G. Hemry (b. 1956) American naval officer, author [pseud. Jack Campbell]
The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Invincible (2012)
On computers.
