Primitive Quotes

• Human beings will be happier - not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That's my utopia.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Cancer, Lakes, Community

  Kurt Vonnegut (1988). “Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut”, p.80, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• The word 'God' is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, and religious scripture a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can (for me) change this.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Religious

  "Childish superstition: Einstein's letter makes view of religion relatively clear" by James Randerson, www.theguardian.com. May 13, 2008.

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• God has graced every tradition with insight into the divine mystery, from the most primitive to the most sophisticated-each has a gift to bring to the world.

  Bede Griffiths

  World, Mystery, Tradition

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• In a way, painting is like wine: it is as old, as simple, as primitive and as varied. Like wine, it is a very specific means of expression, with a limited vocabulary, but vast in its expressive potential.

  Robert Motherwell

  Wine, Mean, Simple

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• Trust, in its most primitive form, is based on authenticity, not flawlessness.

  Todd Duncan

  Authenticity, Form

  Todd Duncan (2002). “High Trust Selling: Make More Money in Less Time with Less Stress”, p.29, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• As civilization advances, man grows unconscious of the primitive elements of life; he is separated from them by his perfection of material techniques.

  Charles Lindbergh

  Men, Civilization, Perfection

  Charles A. Lindbergh (1992). “Autobiography of Values”, Harcourt

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• The genius of the primitive mind is that it can render human helplessness in noble and beautiful ways.

  Don DeLillo

  Beautiful, Mind, Noble

  Don DeLillo (2011). “White Noise”, p.158, Pan Macmillan

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• All thoughts that mold the age begin deep down within the primitive soul.

  James Russell Lowell

  Ideas, Soul, Age

  James Russell Lowell, “An Incident In A Railroad Car”

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• Despite a primitive brain, the octopus possesses an intricate system that helps it decide which tentacle to masturbate with.

  Dana Gould

  Octopus, Brain, Helping

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• One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike -- and yet it is the most precious thing we have.

  Albert Einstein

  Science, Reality, Long

  Albert Einstein (2010). “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein”, p.404, Princeton University Press

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• We are primitive men; we taboo what we desire and need. How did the denying of love come to be associated with the idea of morality.

  Christina Stead

  Love, Art, Men

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• In a sense, evolution adheres to the classic twelve-step program: it takes things one day at a time. It does not strive for perfection; it does not strive at all. There is no progress, no plans, no scala natura, or scale of nature, that ranks organisms from lowly to superior, primitive to advanced.

  Natalie

  Perfection, One Day At A Time, Progress

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• To the primitive mind, everything is either friendly or hostile; but experience has shown that friendliness and hostility are not the conceptions by which the world is to be understood.

  Bertrand Russell

  Mind, Friendly, World

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “Mysticism and Logic”, p.49, Bertrand Russell

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• The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses.

  Albert Einstein

  Atheist, Science, Expression

  "Childish superstition: Einstein's letter makes view of religion relatively clear" by James Randerson, www.theguardian.com. May 13, 2008.

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• The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mystical. It is the power of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong to the rank of devoutly religious men.

  Albert Einstein

  Beautiful, Death, God

  Quoted in Philipp Frank Einstein: His Life and Times (1947), ch.12, section 5.

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• It is a common rule with primitive people not to waken a sleeper, because his soul is away and might not have time to get back.

  James G. Frazer

  Science, People, Soul

  "The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion". Book by James G. Frazer, 1890.

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• Very few people realise that sex is a psychic and not a physical act. The clumsy coupling of human beings is simply a biological paraphrase of this truth - a primitive method of introducing minds to each other, engaging them. But most people are stuck in the physical aspect, unaware of the poetic rapport which it so clumsily tries to teach.

  Lawrence Durrell

  Sex, Psychics, People

  Lawrence Durrell (2012). “The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea”, p.272, Faber & Faber

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• To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty... this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.

  Albert Einstein

  Beauty, Wise, Knowledge

  Quoted in Philipp Frank Einstein: His Life and Times (1947), ch.12, section 5.

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• Whoever shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Change, Education, Religion

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• The direction of society has been taken over by a type of man who is not interested in the principles of civilisation. Not of this or that civilisation but from what we can judge today of any civilisation. The type of man dominant today is a primitive one, a Naturmensch rising up in the midst of a civilised world.

  Jose Ortega y Gasset

  Taken, Men, Rising Up

  "The Revolt of the Masses". Book by José Ortega y Gasset. Chapter IX: "The Primitive and the Technical", 1929.

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• Stereotypes are ways of making extremely primitive and simple differentiations. Differentiations of gender, race, class, social status - so ordinary social life is very much built upon a whole repertoire of stereotypes we carry around. And those are immediately laminated onto people, and it isn't just visual.

  W. J. T. Mitchell

  Simple, Race, Class

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• The primitive sign of wanting is trying to get.

  G. E. M. Anscombe

  Knowledge, Mind, Trying

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• Life, from beginning to end, is fear. Yes, it is pain, yes, it is desire, but more than anything it is fear; a certain amount rational, an enormous amount irrational. All political cruelties stem from that overwhelming fear. To push back the threatening forces, to offer primitive sacrifices, to give up some in the hope that others will be savedthat is the power struggle. That is the outsidedness of the poor, the feeble, the infantile. That is the outsidedness of Jews. That is the outsidedness of blacks. That is the outsidedness of women.

  Vivian Gornick

  Giving Up, Pain, Fear

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• The primitive stages can always be re-established; the primitive mind is, in the fullest meaning of the word, imperishable.

  Sigmund Freud

  Love, Mind, Stage

  Sigmund Freud, Joan Riviere, James Strachey (1959). “Collected Papers: Papers on metapsychology. Papers on applied psycho-analysis”

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• If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody will. If you're right 90% of the time, why quibble about the remaining 3%? In Africa some of the native tribes have a custom of beating the ground with clubs and uttering spine chilling cries. Anthropologists call this a form of primitive self-expression. In America we call it golf.

  Dave Barry

  Golf, Self, Expression

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