Humans Quotes - Page 10

• We don’t like to think of ourselves as prey—it is a lessening thought—but the truth is that in our arrogance and so-called knowledge we forget that we are not unique. We are part of nature as much as other animals, and some animals—sharks, fever-bearing mosquitoes, wolves and bear, to name but a few—perceive us as a food source, a meat supply, and simply did not get the memo about how humans are superior. It can be shocking, humbling, painful, very edifying and sometimes downright fatal to run into such an animal.

  Gary Paulsen

  Running, Animal, Unique

  Gary Paulsen (2003). “Brian's Hunt”, p.65, Wendy Lamb Books

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• Dogs are not like cats, who amusingly tolerate humans only until someone comes up with a tin opener that can be operated with a paw. Men made dogs, they took wolves and gave them human things - unnecessary intelligence, names, a desire to belong, and a twitching inferiority complex. All dogs dream wolf dreams, and know they're dreaming of biting their Maker. Every dog knows, deep in his heart, that he is a Bad Dog.

  Terry Pratchett

  Dream, Dog, Heart

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• What we ask is to be human individuals, however peculiar and unexpected. It is no good saying: "You are a little girl and therefore you ought to like dolls"; if the answer is, "But I don't," there is no more to be said.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Girl, Dolls, Peculiar

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• But monsters, I now know, come in all shapes and sizes, and only their appetite for human flesh defines them.

  Rick Yancey

  Monsters, Shapes, Flesh

  Rick Yancey (2010). “The Monstrumologist: The Terror Beneath”, p.283, Simon and Schuster

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• Perhaps the great renewal of the world will consist of this, that man and woman, freed of all confused feelings and desires, shall no longer seek each other as opposites, but simply as members of a family and neighbors, and will unite as human beings, in order to simply, earnestly, patiently, and jointly bear the heavy responsibility of sexuality that has been entrusted to them.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Confused, Responsibility, Men

  Rainer Maria Rilke (2010). “Letters to a Young Poet”, p.39, New World Library

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• The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Feelings, Different, Human Nature

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1993). “Frankenstein”, p.45, Wordsworth Editions

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• To see ten thousand animals untamed and not branded with the symbols of human commerce is like scaling an unconquered mountain for the first time, or like finding a forest without roads or footpaths, or the blemish of an axe. You know then what you had always been told -- that the world once lived and grew without adding machines and newsprint and brick-walled streets and the tyranny of clocks.

  Beryl Markham

  Nature, Animal, Mountain

  Beryl Markham (1994). “The Illustrated West with the Night”, Stewart, Tabori, & Chang

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• I hate the very human inclination towards insensitivity

  Megan McCafferty

  Hate, Insensitivity, Inclination

  Megan McCafferty (2010). “The Complete Jessica Darling Series: Sloppy Firsts, Second Helpings, Charmed Thirds, Fourth Comings, Perfect Fifths”, p.1108, Crown

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• If I’d chosen never to the foot inside the great fairytale, I’d never have known what I’ve lost. Do you see what I’m getting at? Sometimes it’s worse for us human beings to lose something dear to us than never to have had it at all.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Feet, Fairytale, Sometimes

  Jostein Gaarder (2010). “The Orange Girl”, p.63, Hachette UK

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• If you were to turn into a snake tomorrow and begin devouring humans, and from the same mouth you started devouring humans, you cried out to me 'I love you,' would I still be able to say 'I love you' the same way I do today?

  Tite Kubo

  Love You, Snakes, Bleach

  "Fictional character: Gin Ichimaru". Anime series "Bleach" ("Goodbye... Rangiku", 2011), 2004-2012.

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• I do not believe in the doctrine of the greatest good of the greatest number. The only real, dignified, human doctrine is the greatest good of all.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Peace, Real, Believe

  Mahatma Gandhi (1966). “Socialism of My Conception”

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• Hearts, you say? You Humans are always so quick to speak of such things. As though you carry your hearts in the very palms of your hands. But this eye of mine perceives all. There is nothing that it overlooks. If this eye cannot see a thing, then it does not exist. That is the assumption under which I have always fought. What is this "heart"? If I tear open that chest of yours, will I see it there? If I smash open that skull of yours, will I see it there?

  Tite Kubo

  Heart, Eye, Hands

  "Fictional character: Ulquiorra Cifer". "Bleach" manga, Chapter 317, page 20, 2001 - 2016.

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• There is something about wills which brings out the worst side of human nature. People who under ordinary circumstances are perfectly upright and amiable, go as curly as corkscrews and foam at the mouth, whenever they hear the words 'I devise and bequeath.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  People, Ordinary, Foam

  DOROTHY L. SAYERS (1963). “STRONG POISON”

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• Evolution brings human beings. Human beings, through a long and painful process, bring humanity.

  Dan Simmons

  Long, Humanity, Evolution

  Dan Simmons (2014). “The Hyperion Cantos 4-Book Bundle: Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, The Rise of Endymion”, p.1836, Spectra

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• Could you understand the meaning of light if there were no darkness to point the contrast? Day and night, life and death, love and hatred, since none of these things can have any being at all apart from the existence of the other, you can no more separate them than you can separate the two sides of a coin.

  Elizabeth Goudge

  Night, Light, Life And Death

  "Green Dolphin Country".

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• Civilizations grow by agreements and accomodations and accretions, not by repudiations. The rebels and the revolutionaries are only eddies, they keep the stream from getting stagnant but they get swept down and absorbed, they're a side issue. Quiet desperation is another name for the human condition. If revolutionaries would learn that they can't remodel society by day after tomorrow -- haven't the wisdom to and shouldn't be permitted to -- I'd have more respect for them ... Civilizations grow and change and decline -- they aren't remade.

  Wallace Stegner

  Agreement, Civilization, Names

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• It’s the leftover humans. The survivors. They’re the ones I can’t stand to look at, although on many occasions I still fail. I deliberately seek out the colors to keep my mind off them, but now and then, I witness the ones who are left behind, crumbling among the jigsaw puzzle of realization, despair, and surprises. They have punctured hearts. They have beaten lungs. Which in turn brings me to the subject I am telling you about tonight, or today, or whatever the hour and color. It’s the story of one of those perpetual survivors –an expert at being left behind.

  Markus Zusak

  Heart, Jigsaw Puzzles, Color

  "The Book Thief". Book by Markus Zusak, 2007.

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• We humans are naturally disposed to worship gods and heroes, to build our pantheons and valhallas. I would rather see that impulse directed into the adoration of daft singers, thicko footballers and air-headed screen actors than into the veneration of dogmatic zealots, fanatical preachers, militant politicians and rabid cultural commentators.

  Stephen Fry

  Hero, Air, Valhalla

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• When one has no character, one HAS to apply a method. Here it did wonders incontrovertibly, and I am living on the site of one of the greatest crimes in human history.

  Albert Camus

  Character, Wonder, Crime

  Albert Camus (1957). “The fall”, Vintage

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• The Master created humans first as the lowest type, most easily formed. Gradually, he replaced them by robots, the next higher step, and finally he created me, to take the place of the last humans.

  Isaac Asimov

  Steps, Robots, Lasts

  Isaac Asimov (1983). “The Robot Collection: The Robot Novels”, Doubleday Books

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• Impossible, I realize, to enter another’s solitude. If it is true that we can ever come to know another human being, even to a small degree, it is only to the extent that he is willing to make himself known. A man will say: I am cold. Or else he will say nothing, and we will see him shivering. Either way, we will know that he is cold. But what of the man who says nothing and does not shiver? Where all is intractable, here all is hermetic and evasive, one can do no more than observe. But whether one can make sense of what he observes is another matter entirely

  Paul Auster

  Men, Solitude, Matter

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• Midlife is the time to let go of an overdominant ego and to contemplate the deeper significance of human existence.

  Carl Jung

  Letting Go, Ego, Midlife

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• Gideon laughed. "I like to be direct." "Okay," I said. "But I warn you, I like to be evasive, inserutable and generally send mixed messages." "I doubt it." "Human interaction is not my strong point," I told him. "Not seriously." "Seriously," I said. Thinking: There is so much about me he doesn't know. Gideon put his hand on my leg. "What's your strong point, then?" "Goats," I told him. "I am excellent with goats.

  E. Lockhart

  Strong, Thinking, Hands

  "Real Live Boyfriends". Book by E. Lockhart, 2010.

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• Human understanding is fallible, and we see through a glass, darkly. Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God.

  Margaret Atwood

  Glasses, Understanding, Shadow

  Margaret Atwood (2009). “The Year of the Flood”, p.173, Anchor

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• What the trees can do handsomely-greening and flowering, fading and then the falling of leaves-human beings cannot do with dignity, let alone without pain.

  Martha Gellhorn

  Pain, Fall, Tree

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