Human Species Quotes

• Every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.

  Charles Dickens

  Baby, Fortune Cookie, World

  Nicholas Nickleby Ch. 36

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• In the human species at all events there is a great diversity of pleasures. The same things delight some men and annoy others, and things painful and disgusting to some are pleasant and attractive to others.

  Aristotle

  Men, Diversity, Events

  Aristotle (1934). “The Nicomachean ethics”

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• Aggressiveness is not the main trouble with the human species, but rather an excess capacity for fanatical devotion.

  Arthur Koestler

  Excess, Trouble, Devotion

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• Environmentalists and secular humanists insist that humans will destroy the planet. Corporate capitalists and many religious fundamentalists have no regard for wildlife and nature. Ultimately, this dualistic battle is based on false premises. In fact, this planet is more powerful than the human species.

  Zeena Schreck

  Religious, Powerful, Battle

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• I am never interested in the individual, but in the human species and its environment.

  Andreas Gursky

  Environment, Individual, Humans

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• For the human species to evolve, the conversation must deepen.

  Margaret Mead

  Conversation, Evolve, Humans

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• I want to challenge all of you as people of deep conscience, people who are environment stewards of the earth and oceans ... By changing what you eat, you will change the entire contract between the human species and the natural world.

  James Cameron

  Ocean, People, Challenges

  "James Cameron touts vegan diet during Nat Geo gala" by Michael d'Estries, www.mnn.com. June 17, 2013.

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• It must be stressed that there is nothing insulting about looking at people as animals. We are animals, after all. Homo sapiens is a species of primate, a biological phenomenon dominated by biological rules, like any other species. Human nature is no more than one particular kind of animal nature. Agreed, the human species is an extraordinary animal; but all other species are also extraordinary animals, each in their own way, and the scientific man-watcher can bring many fresh insights to the study of human affairs if he can retain this basic attitude of evolutionary humility.

  Desmond Morris

  Attitude, Humility, Men

  Desmond Morris (1977). “Manwatching: A Field Guide to Human Behavior”

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• Text is linear; it is black and white; it doesn't zoom around the page in 3-D; it isn't intelligent by itself; in fact, in terms of immediate reaction it is quite boring. I can't imagine a single preliterate was ever wowed at the first sight of text, and yet text has been the basis of arguably the most fundamental intellectual transformation of the human species. It and its subforms, such as algebra, have made science education for all a plausible goal.

  Andrea diSessa

  Learning, Black And White, Intelligent

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• There has been a controversy started of late, much better worth examination, concerning the general foundation of Morals; whether they be derived from Reason, or from Sentiment; whether we attain the knowledge of them by a chain of argument and induction, or by an immediate feeling and finer internal sense; whether, like all sound judgement of truth and falsehood, they should be the same to every rational intelligent being; or whether, like the perception of beauty and deformity, they be founded entirely on the particular fabric and constitution of the human species.

  David Hume

  Intelligent, Perception Of Beauty, Judgement

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• Today, the fundamental global objective of all education aspiring not only to progress but to the survival of humanity is to Civilize and Unify the Earth and Transform the human species into genuine humanity The education of the future should teach an ethics of planetary understanding.

  Edgar Morin

  Understanding, Humanity, Survival

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• The Christian... imagines the better future of the human species... in the image of heavenly joy... We, on the other hand, will have this heaven on earth.

  Moses Hess

  Christian, Hands, Joy

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• I think it's realistic to have hope. One can be a perverse idealist and say the easiest thing: 'I despair. The world's no good.' That's a perverse idealist. It's practical to hope, because the hope is for us to survive as a human species. That's very realistic.

  Studs Terkel

  Thinking, Despair, World

  RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY Interview, www.pbs.org. December 19, 2003.

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• I suppose that, after the passion of love, water rights have caused more trouble than anything else to the human species.

  Alice Steinbach

  Passion, Rights, Water

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• Stabilizing the climate is not about saving the human species... Stabilizing the climate is a precious opportunity to pass on to all future human beings gifts of immense value, gifts that, once gone, will be beyond the imagination and skill of humanity to recreate.

  Eban Goodstein

  Opportunity, Skills, Imagination

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• If we consider the superiority of the human species, the size of its brain, its powers of thinking, language and organization, we can say this: were there the slightest possibility that another rival or superior species might appear, on earth or elsewhere, man would use every means at his disposal to destroy it.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Mean, Men, Thinking

  Jean Baudrillard (2001). “Selected Writings”, p.223, Stanford University Press

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• The existing order is breaking down at a very rapid rate, and the main uncertainty is whether mankind can exert a positive role in shaping a new world order or is doomed to await collapse in a passive posture. We believe a new orderwill be born no later than early in the next century and that the death throes of the old and the birth pangs of the new will be a testing time for the human species.

  Richard A. Falk

  Believe, Order, Nwo

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• The greatest danger that besets us does not come from believers or atheists; it comes from those who, under the guise of religion, science or reason, imagine that we can free ourselves from the limitations of human nature and perfect the human species.

  Chris Hedges

  Atheist, Perfect, Doe

  "On Secular Fundamentalism" by Chris Hedges, www.truthdig.com. April 7, 2008.

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• Last week a former Royal Marine who is the boyfriend of the model Kelly Brooks crashed into a bus stop while driving a van carrying a load of dead badgers.
  I mention this solely to remind you that linguists are not kidding when they say … that your command of English enables you to understand sentences that have never occurred before in the entire history of the human species.

  Geoffrey K. Pullum

  Marine, Bus Stops, Lasts

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• Sight and touch, being thus increased in capacity, might belong to some species far superior to man; or rather the human species would be far different had all the senses been thus improved.

  Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

  Men, Sight, Different

  Brillat Savarin (2015). “The Physyology of Taste”, p.50, Editorial MAXTOR

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• Art Exists for the human species. I think that all of the people who love art, those who teach art, and all of you should burn with the obligation to save the world

  Shinichi Suzuki

  Art, Thinking, Sea

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• We wonder, how do you instruct seven billion people as to the relationship to the Earth? Because unless they understand that and relate the way they should be, future is pretty dim for the human species.

  Oren Lyons

  People, Way, Earth

  "Onondaga Leader Oren Lyons, Pete Seeger on International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples". "Democracy Now!" with Amy Goodman, www.democracynow.org. August 9, 2013.

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• The most gifted members of the human species are at their creative best when they cannot have their way, and must compensate for what they miss by realizing and cultivating their capacities and talents.

  Eric Hoffer

  Missing, Creative, Way

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• In a state therefore of great equality and virtue, where pure and simple manners prevailed, the increase of the human species would evidently be much greater than any increase that has been hitherto known.

  Thomas Malthus

  Equality, Simple, Virtue

  Thomas Malthus (2015). “An Essay on the Principle of Population: Illustrated”, p.16, eKitap Projesi

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• The human species was too fond of lying, cheating, envy, ignorance, self-pity, self-righteousness, and utopian visions that always led to mass murder-but until and if it destroyed itself, it harbored the potential to become nobler, to take responsibility for its actions, to live and let live, and to earn the stewardship of the earth.

  Dean Koontz

  Cheating, Lying, Ignorance

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