We see, surrounding the narrow raft illuminated by the flickering light of human comradeship, the dark ocean on whose rolling waves we toss for a brief hour; all the loneliness of humanity amid hostile forces is concentrated on the individual soul, w...
An evolutionary perspective of our place in the history of the earth reminds us that Homo sapiens sapiens has occupied the planet for the tiniest fraction of that planet's four and a half thousand million years of existence. In many ways we are a bio...
And here lies the crux of the matter: to say that nature is personal may mean not so much seeing the world differently as acting differently -- or, to state it another way, it may mean interacting with more-than-human others in nature as if those oth...
Modern civilization depends on science … James Smithson was well aware that knowledge should not be viewed as existing in isolated parts, but as a whole, each portion of which throws light on all the other, and that the tendency of all is to improv...
Young Spock: I presume you've prepared new insults for today. Vulcan Bully #1: Affirmative. Young Spock: This is your thirty-fifth attempt to elicit an emotional response from me. Vulcan Bully #2: You're neither human nor Vulcan, and therefore have n...
I am as proud to be called a feminist as I am to be called a Jew, or an American. Feminism is an indivisible part of who I am, and I remain mystified by the stigma that has been attached to the idea that women are human beings. It sounds so obvious a...
A man once asked me ... how I managed in my books to write such natural conversation between men when they were by themselves. Was I, by any chance, a member of a large, mixed family with a lot of male friends? I replied that, on the contrary, I was ...
Because different cultures see a particular animal as representing a certain human virtue or vice, the use of animal imagery also allows for more colorful commentary on the human condition.
We humans have always sought to increase our personal energy in the only manner we have known, by seeking to psychologically steal it from the others--an unconscious competition that underlies all human conflict in the world.
Left to themselves, humans have always managed their own affairs creatively and well. Indeed, for most of human evolution and history people have lived peaceful, co-operative lives without rulers, leaders, politicians, soldiers, policemen and taxmen.
There are indeed moral universals — the Hebrew Bible calls them ‘the covenant with Noah’ and they form the basis of modern codes of human rights. But they exist to create space for cultural and religious difference…
Attempts at description are stupid. Who can all at once describe a human being? Even when he is presented to us we only begin that knowledge of his appearance which must be completed by innumerable impressions under differing circumstances.
Humans want to conquer everyone they can, and buy everything they see. I think this is because humans have forgotten how to be happy. It's not their fault - it's not easy figuring out how to be happy in these days of anything-but-moderation.
If it had only been for the immortality gene, humanity would have eventually managed to turn it back on. At one point in history, they would have embarked on a quest to become immortals, like the gods. But they couldn’t and the whole of humanity st...
Are you saying the end of human suffering began with an amusement park?” “I’m saying the end of human suffering is a myth.” “But everyone’s happy.” “You think that just because a person doesn’t question the way the system works that...
It wasn't so long ago when all the so-called scientists said that humans were intelligent and that animals weren't, humans were the solitary unchallenged masters of the globe and probably the universe and the only question was whether we were handlin...
How intense can be the longing to escape from the emptiness and dullness of human verbosity, to take refuge in nature, apparently so inarticulate, or in the wordlessness of long, grinding labour, of sound sleep, of true music, or of a human understan...
Very often conditions are recorded as observable "under thy fingers" [...] Among such observations it is important to notice that the pulsations of the human heart are observed.
The freedom to share one's insights and judgments verbally or in writing is, just like the freedom to think, a holy and inalienabl e right of humanity that, as a universal human right, is above all the rights of princes.
Often, no sooner would the mind begin to scale the heights of Mt. Knowledge than it would receive a frantic call from body base camp, demanding it return to oversee "Operation Masturbate.
Sometimes, even when I'm trying to keep the load light it just feels so heavy. Like the sky is a ton of bricks waiting to fall and anything I might do, think or feel could cause it to come crashing down.
