#human

People have traditionally turned to ritual to help them frame and acknowledge and ultimately even find joy in just such a paradox of being human - in the fact that so much of what we desire for our happiness and need for our survival comes at a heavy cost. We kill to eat, we cut down trees to build our homes, we exploit other people and the earth. Sacrifice - of nature, of the interests of others, even of our earlier selves - appears to be an inescapable part of our condition, the unavoidable price of all our achievements. A successful ritual is one that addresses both aspects of our predicament, recalling us to the shamefulness of our deeds at the same time it celebrates what the poet Frederick Turner calls "the beauty we have paid for with our shame." Without the double awareness pricked by such rituals, people are liable to find themselves either plundering the earth without restraint or descending into self-loathing and misanthropy. Perhaps it's not surprising that most of us today bring one of those attitudes or the other to our conduct in nature. ↗

— Michael Pollan

#humanity #nature #ritual #sacrifice #attitude

Referring to Jumper the spider, who needs to hide himself in human form, and he's learning to act like a human. "I'm sure I can learn to walk faster than that," he said desperately. "But you'll also need to learn the nuances of human behavior. Such as not going around naked." "What's wrong with being natural?" he demanded. "Humans aren't natural. They are girt about by all manner of conventions. It will take time for you to catch up with them all. ↗

— Piers Anthony

#morals #spiders #nature

Humanity is the cancer of nature. ↗

— Dave Foreman

#humanity #nature #nature

نحن من يعطى السفهاء شُهرة بالحديث عنهم.. فتجاهلهم يقتلهم لانه يذكرهم بحقارتهم.. والتفاعل معهم يشجعهم على المزيد !! ↗

— Shadi Kamal Kandil

#nature

For a Westerner, it is usually sufficient for a proposition to be logically sound. For a Chinese it is not sufficient that a proposition be logically correct, but it must be at the same time in accord with human nature. ↗

— Lin Yutang

#human-nature #logic #philosophy #reason #nature

To weigh and evaluate a vast grid of information, much of it meaningless, and to arrive at sensible, if erroneous, conclusions, is a skill not to be sneezed at. ↗

— Richard Russo

#nature

You don't invent circumstances, but when they happen they reveal human nature. ↗

— Louis Khan

#human-nature #nature

Si l'homme rit, s'il est le seul, parmi le règne animal, à exhiber cette atroce déformation faciale, c'est également qu'il est le seul, dépassant l'égoïsme de la nature animale, à avoir atteint le stade infernal et suprême de la cruauté. ↗

— Michel Houellebecq

#humanité #rire #égoïsme #nature

Human hypocrisy: When one judges humanity as a whole, people have the habit of disagreeing, saying that everyone is different - unique. Yet people turn around and say that at the end of the day, everyone is the same. Ladies and gentlemen, the joyful paradoxical nature of humanity. If you really want to dismiss the paradox, show me that your an imaginary number, rather than a real number. ↗

— Lionel Suggs

#hypocrisy #paradox #nature

But people didn't have to pay as much attention to the awful truth. As the living legend of the cruel tyrant in the city and the gentle holy man in the jungle grew, so, too, did the happiness of the people grow. They were all employed full time as actors in a play they understood, that any human being anywhere could understand and applaud. ↗

— Kurt Vonnegut

#religion #truth #religion