#anger

The argument has long been made that we humans are by nature compassionate and empathic despite the occasional streak of meanness, but torrents of bad news throughout history have contradicted that claim, and little sound science has backed it. But try this thought experiment. Imagine the number of opportunities people around the world today might have to commit an antisocial act, from rape or murder to simple rudeness and dishonesty. Make that number the bottom of a fraction. Now for the top value you put the number of such antisocial acts that will actually occur today. That ratio of potential to enacted meanness holds at close to zero any day of the year. And if for the top value you put the number of benevolent acts performed in a given day, the ratio of kindness to cruelty will always be positive. (The news, however, comes to us as though that ratio was reversed.) Harvard's Jerome Kagan proposes this mental exercise to make a simple point about human nature: the sum total of goodness vastly outweighs that of meanness. 'Although humans inherit a biological bias that permits them to feel anger, jealousy, selfishness and envy, and to be rude, aggressive or violent,' Kagan notes, 'they inherit an even stronger biological bias for kindness, compassion, cooperation, love and nurture – especially toward those in need.' This inbuilt ethical sense, he adds, 'is a biological feature of our species. ↗

— Daniel Goleman

#human-nature #social-intelligence #anger

If you really believe music is dangerous, you should let it go in one ear and out the other. ↗

— Jose Bergamin

#dangerous #ear #go #music #other

I wouldn't want my daughters to date a guy like me. I was dangerous around women in my twenties. I'm terrified that they might end up with someone like me. ↗

— Antonio Banderas

#dangerous #date #daughters #end #guy

Heterosexuality is dangerous. It tempts you to aim at a perfect duality of desire. ↗

— Marguerite Duras

#dangerous #desire #duality #heterosexuality #perfect

‘And Death spoke to them —’” “Sorry,” interjected Harry, “but Death spoke to them?” “It’s a fairy tale, Harry!” “Right, sorry. Go on. ↗

— J.K. Rowling

#hermoine-granger #humor #death

I've never been able to understand 'faith' myself, nor to see how a just God could expect his creatures to pick the one true religion out of an infinitude of false ones - by faith alone. It strikes me as a sloppy way to run an organization, whether universe or a smaller one. ↗

— Robert A. Heinlein

#science-fiction #stranger-in-a-strange-land #faith

That is why embittered people find heroes and madmen a perennial source of fascination, for they have no fear of life or death. Both heroes and madmen are indifferent to danger and will forge ahead regardless of what other people say. ↗

— Paulo Coelho

#heroes #madmen #death

We are so utterly ordinary, so commonplace, while we profess to know a Power the Twentieth Century does not reckon with. But we are "harmless," and therefore unharmed. We are spiritual pacifists, non-militants, conscientious objectors in this battle-to-the-death with principalities and powers in high places. Meekness must be had for contact with men, but brass, outspoken boldness is required to take part in the comradeship of the Cross. We are "sideliners" -- coaching and criticizing the real wrestlers while content to sit by and leave the enemies of God unchallenged. The world cannot hate us, we are too much like its own. Oh that God would make us dangerous! ↗

— Jim Elliot

#death

I think generalizations of any sort are dangerous. I'll say, if that is the case - right now it's an American issue. ↗

— Kerry Washington

#any #case #dangerous #generalizations #i

I'll give you a list of a hundred ways that I'm more likely to be injured than belting around a race track with people who know what they're doing. It's not a place where I feel I'm in unnecessary danger. ↗

— Eric Bana

#danger #doing #feel #give #hundred