Human Activity Quotes - Page 5

• Geologists and paleo-climatologists know that in the past the Earth's temperature has been substantially warmer than it is today, and that this warming has occurred under purely natural circumstances. Until we can say precisely how much of the current global warming and greenhouse gas increase is the result of this normal temperature cycle, we will not be able to measure how much human activity has added to this natural trend, nor will we be able to predict whether there will be any lasting negative effects.

  Greg Benson

  Past, Trends, Able

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• We do not know how much of the environmental change is due to human activities and how much [is due] to long-term natural processes over which we have no control.

  Freeman Dyson

  Long, Environmental, Global Warming

  Freeman J. Dyson (2007). “A Many-colored Glass: Reflections on the Place of Life in the Universe”, p.29, University of Virginia Press

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• To those who say climate change is not caused by human activity or that addressing it will harm the economy, let's encourage them to go to college, too, and to study physics and to study economics, but for the rest of us, let's get to work.

  Martin O'Malley

  College, Climate, Study

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• The whole fauna of human fantasies, their marine vegetation, drifts and luxuriates in the dimly lit zones of human activity, as though plaiting thick tresses of darkness. Here, too, appear the lighthouses of the mind, with their outward resemblance to less pure symbols. The gateway to mystery swings open at the touch of human weakness and we have entered the realms of darkness. One false step, one slurred syllable together reveal a man's thoughts.

  Louis Aragon

  Marine, Men, Swings

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• The anarchist conclusion is that every kind of human activity should begin from what from what is local and immediate, should link in a network with no centre and no directing agency, hiving off new cells as the original grows.

  Colin Ward

  Agency, Cells, Links

  Colin Ward (2017). “Anarchy in Action”, p.69, PM Press

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• Production for the sake of production - the obsession with the rate of growth, whether in the capitalist market or in planned economies - leads to monstrous absurdities. The only acceptable finality of human activity is the production of a subjectivity that is auto-enriching its relation to the world in a continuous fashion.

  Felix Guattari

  Fashion, Growth, World

  Félix Guattari (1995). “Chaosmosis: An Ethico-aesthetic Paradigm”, p.21, Indiana University Press

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• The city of Chandigarh is planned to human scale. It puts us in touch with the infinite cosmos and nature. It provides us with places and buildings for all human activities by which the citizens can live a full and harmonious life. Here the radiance of nature and heart are within our reach.

  Le Corbusier

  Heart, Cities, Cosmos

  "The Edict of Chandigarh" by Le Corbusier, 1959.

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• War is the province of chance. In no sphere of human activity is such a margin to be left for this intruder. It increases the uncertainty of every circumstance, and deranges the course of events.

  Carl von Clausewitz

  Military, War, Events

  "The Essential Clausewitz: Selections from On War".

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• Every human activity, except sin, can be done for God's pleasure, if you do it with an attitude of praise.

  Rick Warren

  Attitude, Done, Good Christian

  Rick Warren (2010). “Daily Inspiration for the Purpose Driven Life: Scriptures and Reflections from the 40 Days of Purpose”, p.37, Harper Collins

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• Literature is the human activity that make the fullest and most precise account of variousness, possibility, complexity, and difficulty.

  Lionel Trilling

  Literature, Possibility, Difficulty

  1950 The Liberal Imagination, preface.

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• We have almost succeeded in leveling all human activities to the common denominator of securing the necessities of life and providing for their abundance.

  Hannah Arendt

  Life, Excess, Common

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• All human activity is fruitless when pitted against the girls and boys singing on pop television, for they have found the answer as the rest of us search for the question. I will sing, too. If not, I will have to die.

  Steven Morrissey

  Girl, Memorable, Boys

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• Teaching like any truly human activity emerges from one's inwardness.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Teaching, Humans, Activity

  Parker J. Palmer, Megan Scribner (2007). “The Courage to Teach Guide for Reflection and Renewal”, p.102, John Wiley & Sons

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• There are two methods of human activity - and according to which one of these two kinds of activity people mainly follow, are there two kinds of people: One use their reason to learn what is good and what is bad and they act according to this knowledge; the other act as they want to and then they use their reason to prove that that which they did was good and that which they didn't do was bad.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Two, People, Use

  Leo Tolstoy (2016). “The Journal of Leo Tolstoi 1895~1899 (Abridged)”, p.170, BIG BYTE BOOKS

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• History was a series of decisions about what to tell and a series of accidents about what survived after telling. Not truth, but a historian could search for truth, and the search was as worthy as any other human activity.

  David Drake

  Decision, Worthy, Historian

  David Drake (2009). “Patriots”, p.39, Baen Publishing Enterprises

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• Of all human activities, writing is the one for which it is easiest to find excuses not to begin – the desk’s too big, the desk’s too small, there’s too much noise, there’s too much quiet, it’s too hot, too cold, too early, too late. I had learned over the years to ignore them all, and simply to start.

  Robert Harris

  Writing, Years, Hot

  "The Ghost". Book by Robert Harris, September 26, 2007.

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• Science is as corruptible a human activity as any other.

  Michael Crichton

  Integrity, Physics, Humans

  Michael Crichton (2007). “Next”, HarperCollins UK

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• Is love an art? Then it requires knowledge and effort. Love is not a spontaneous feeling, a thing that you fall into, but is something that requires thought, knowledge, care, giving, and respect. And it is something that is rare and difficult to find in capitalism, which commodifies human activity.

  Erich Fromm

  Art, Fall, Love Is

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• From time to time, it is worth wandering around the fuzzy border regions of what you do, if only to remind yourself that no human activity is an island.

  Julian Baggini

  Islands, Borders, Wandering Around

  "Great minds don't think alike" by Julian Baggini, www.theguardian.com. August 4, 2008.

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• Imagine, [Kriezler] said, that you enter a large, somewhat crumbling hall that echoes with the sounds of people mumbling and talking repetitively to themselves. All around you these people fall into prostrate positions, some of them weeping. Where are you? Sara’s answer was immediate: in an asylum. Perhaps, Kreizler answered, but you could also be in a church. In the one place the behavior would be considered mad; in the other, not only sane, but as respectable as any human activity can be.

  Caleb Carr

  Fall, Echoes, Talking

  Caleb Carr (2006). “The Alienist: A Novel”, p.157, Random House

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• The creation of wealth is certainly not to be despised, but in the long run the only human activities really worthwhile are the search for knowledge, and the creation of beauty. This is beyond argument, the only point of debate is which comes first.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Running, Long, Firsts

  Arthur C. Clarke (2013). “Profiles Of The Future”, p.51, Hachette UK

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• Man wants to see nature and evolution as separate from human activities. There is a natural world, and there is man. But man also belongs to the natural world. If he is a ferocious predator, that too is part of evolution. If cod and haddock and other species cannot survive because man kills them, something more adaptable will take their place. Nature, the ultimate pragmatist, doggedly searches for something that works. But as the cockroach demonstrates, what works best in nature does not always appeal to us.

  Mark Kurlansky

  Men, Cockroaches, Doe

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• A wise man once said that all human activity is a form of play. And the highest form of play is the search for Truth, Beauty and Love. What more is needed? Should there be a ‘meaning’ as well, that will be a bonus? If we waste time looking for life’s meaning, we may have no time to live — or to play.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Wise, Men, Beauty And Love

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• Whatever field of human activity one may take, only those trends that are in harmony with the needs of society show rapid progress.

  Nikolay Chernyshevsky

  Freedom, Democracy, Progress

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• In the scientific world I find just that disinterested devotion to great ends that I hope will spread at last through the entire range of human activity.

  H. G. Wells

  Knowledge, World, Lasts

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