#humans

we are all alone, born alone, die alone, and — in spite of true romance magazines — we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. i do not say lonely — at least, not all the time — but essentially, and finally, alone. this is what makes your self-respect so important, and i don’t see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness ↗

— William S Burroughs

#humans #people #philosophy #respect

We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. ↗

— Richard Dawkins

#philosophy #humans

You're trying to be tricky. What's morality?" "It's the difference between what's right and what you can rationalize." "Must be a human thing." "Exactly. ↗

— Christopher Moore

#humans #morals

Out of 6 billion humans, the troublemakers are just a handful. ↗

— Dalai Lama

#handful #humans #just #out #troublemakers

Of all the creative work produced by humans anywhere, a tiny fraction has continuing commercial value. For that tiny fraction, the copyright is a crucially important legal device. ↗

— Lawrence Lessig

#commercial #continuing #copyright #creative #creative work

You know, it's possible for two humans to be in a relationship without there needing to be some public reason for that relationship. ↗

— Chris Martin

#know #needing #possible #public #reason

When we think of the major threats to our national security, the first to come to mind are nuclear proliferation, rogue states and global terrorism. But another kind of threat lurks beyond our shores, one from nature, not humans - an avian flu pandemic. ↗

— Barack Obama

#avian #beyond #come #first #flu

I never appreciated 'positive heroes' in literature. They are almost always cliches, copies of copies, until the model is exhausted. I prefer perplexity, doubt, uncertainty, not just because it provides a more 'productive' literary raw material, but because that is the way we humans really are. ↗

— Jose Saramago

#always #appreciated #because #cliches #copies

Just as we reject racism, sexism, ageism, and heterosexism, we reject speciesism. The species of a sentient being is no more reason to deny the protection of this basic right than race, sex, age, or sexual orientation is a reason to deny membership in the human moral community to other humans. ↗

— Gary L. Francione

#ageism #basic #being #community #deny

We need a government, alas, because of the nature of humans. ↗

— P. J. O'Rourke

#because #government #humans #nature #need