| Quote | Author | Date | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
Despite the beauty of our world and the scope of human accomplishment, it is hard not to worry that the forces of chaos will triumph, not merely in the end but in every moment. |
Sam Harris | born 1967 | Harris, S. (2014). Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion. Bantam Press. |
Man’s unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his greatness; it is because there is an Infinite in him, which with all his cunning he cannot quite bury under the Finite. |
Thomas Carlyle | 1795 – 1881 | Knowles, E. (1999). The Oxford dictionary of quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. |
A belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness. |
Joseph Conrad | 1857 – 1924 | ‘Under Western Eyes’ Oxford dictionary of quotations |
The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one’s love upon other human individuals. |
George Orwell | 1903 – 1950 | Reflections on Gandhi (1949) |
Humans are good at discerning subtle patterns that are really there, but equally so at imagining them when they are altogether absent. |
Carl Sagan | 1934 – 1996 | Contact (1985) |
Morality tells us that conscience may not be heard – but that it speaks always against cruelty and injustice. In fact conscience blesses cruelty and injustice – so long as their victims can be quietly buried. |
John Gray | born 1948 | Straw Dogs |
To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of power, to lament the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common dispositions of the greatest part of mankind. |
Edmund Burke | 1729 – 1797 | Knowles, E. (1999). The Oxford dictionary of quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. |
Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood. |
George Orwell | 1903 – 1950 | Orwell, G. (1949). Nineteen eighty-four. London: Secker & Warburg. |
The brevity of our life, the dullness of our senses, the torpor of our indifference, the futility of our occupation, suffer us to know but little: and that little is soon shaken and then torn from the mind by that traitor to learning, that hostile and faithless stepmother to memory, oblivion. |
John of Salisbury | c. 1120 – 1180 | Knowles, E. (1999). The Oxford dictionary of quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. |
When I have a terrible need of — shall I say the word — religion. Then I go out and paint the stars. |
Vincent van Gogh | 1853 – 1890 | |
This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilisations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe. |
Jimmy Carter | born 1924 | Message to intelligent alien life forms in letter aboard Voyager spacecraft |
The satirist may laugh, the philosopher may preach, but Reason herself will respect the prejudices and habits which have been consecrated by the experience of mankind. |
Edward Gibbon | 1737- 1794 | Knowles, E. (1999). The Oxford dictionary of quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. |
We are all special cases. We all want to appeal to something! Everyone insists on his innocence, at all costs, even if it means accusing the rest of the human race and heaven. |
Albert Camus | 1913 – 1960 | Knowles, E. (1999). The Oxford dictionary of quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. |
Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit. |
William Shakespeare | 1564 – 1616 | Demetrius’ response when the infatuated but rejected Helena proposes he could use her ‘like you use your dog’ : Demetrius- A Midsummer Night’s Dream |
Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy? |
Leo Tolstoy | 1828 – 1910 | |
The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty. And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place within it, explorations that are exhilarating to consider. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky. |
Carl Sagan | 1934 – 1996 | Cosmos (1980) |
The longer I live, the more urgent it seems to me to endure and transcribe the whole dictation of existence up to its end, for it might just be the case that only the very last sentence contains that small and possibly inconspicuous word through which everything we had struggled to learn and everything we had failed to understand will be transformed suddenly into magnificent sense. |
Rainer Maria Rilke | 1875 – 1926 | |
The only possible death is to lose one’s belief in the prospects for human progress. |
William Du Bois | 1868 – 1963 | |
God could cause us considerable embarrassment by revealing all the secrets of nature to us: we should not know what to do for sheer apathy and boredom. |
Goethe | 1749 – 1832 | Gross, J. (1983). The Oxford book of aphorisms. Oxford University Press. |
As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being. |
Carl Gustav Jung | 1875 – 1961 | Knowles, E. (1999). The Oxford dictionary of quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. |
We are star stuff pondering the stars. |
Carl Sagan | 1934 – 1996 | paraphrase : Cosmos (1980) |
Mankind is divisible into two great classes: hosts and guests. |
Sir Max Beerbohm | 1872 – 1956 | Knowles, E. (1999). The Oxford dictionary of quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. |
Every man carries with him through life a mirror, as unique and impossible to get rid of as his shadow. |
W. H. Auden | 1907 – 1973 | |
Stare at the Pale Blue Dot for any length of time and then try to convince yourself that God created the whole Universe for one of the 10 million or so species of life that inhabit that speck of dust. Now take it a step further: Imagine that everything was made just for a single shade of that species, or gender, or ethnic or religious subdivision. If this doesn’t strike you as unlikely, pick another dot. Imagine it to be inhabited by a different form of intelligent life. They, too, cherish the notion of a God who has created everything for their benefit. How seriously do you take their claim? |
Carl Sagan | 1934 – 1996 | Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space |
The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything. |
Thomas Hardy | 1840 – 1928 | Knowles, E. (1999). The Oxford dictionary of quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. |