#nature

John considered a young master as the natural enemy of an old servant, and young people in general as a poor contrivance for carrying on the world. ↗

— George Eliot

#submission #nature

Perhaps the most legitimately dispiriting thing about reciprocal altruism is that it is a misnomer. Whereas with kin selection the "goal" of our genes is to actually help another organism, with reciprocal altruism the goal is that the organism be left under the impression that we've helped; the impression alone is enough to bring the reciprocation. ↗

— Robert Wright

#evolution #natural-selection #reciprocity #nature

Mastema prefers absolutes. He wants fences on the world and everything in its place, neat and tidy as a churchyard garden. God is not like that. God is boundless. For all his wisdom, Mastema cannot comprehend Yahweh’s need for surprises. An omniscient Being would naturally yearn for things beyond His control, futures He could not see, wills He could influence but not command. Strange, yes. It is odd when the puppeteer desires his wooden slaves to cut their strings, yet that is exactly what He did when he granted humans free will. ↗

— Kirby Crow

#god #nature

I am Envy...I cannot read and therefore wish all books burned. ↗

— Christopher Marlowe

#burning #envy #human-nature #marlowe #writing

Einstein, stop telling God what to do. ↗

— Niels Bohr

#laws-of-physics #sovereignty-of-god #nature

Retribution seen in natural catastrophes is manufactured by all too eager and all too pious people, each one convinced the world will end but spare them and them alone. But we all know, the world is inherited by the obnoxious, not the righteous ↗

— Steven Erikson

#nature

...one witch. In gym. But Cordelia didn't count. She wasn't supernaturally evil. She only acted like a broom rider. Buffy understood. Poor Cordelia was cursed with popularity, great cloths, and, no lie, she was a babe. Naturally she had to take her frustration out on everybody who didn't have it as good as she did. ↗

— Christopher Golden

#nature

Our capacities, our instincts for this our present sphere are but half developed. Let us be completely natural; before we trouble ourselves with the supernatural. ↗

— Margaret Fuller

#nature

He seemed like a walking blasphemy, a blend of the angel and the ape. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#nature

(I was never surprised that they did not have a phoenix on display. There is only one phoenix at a time, of course, and while the Natural History Museum was filled with dead things, the phoenix is always alive.) ↗

— Neil Gaiman

#nature