#uma

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in being able to remake ourselves. ↗

— Mahatma Gandhi

#age #atomic #being #beings #greatness

Nothing is more important to human beings than an ecologically functioning, life sustaining biosphere on the earth. It is the only habitable place we know of in a forbidding universe. We all depend on it to live and we are compelled to share it; it is our only home... the earth's biosphere seems almost magically suited to human beings and indeed it is, for we evolved through eons of intimate immersion within it. We cannot live long or well without a functioning biosphere, and so it is worth everything we have. ↗

— Joseph Guth

#conservation #earth #ecology #environment #environmentalism

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe. ↗

— Albert Einstein

#human-nature #humor #infinity #philosophy #science

But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most? ↗

— Mark Twain

#common #eighteen #had #humanity #most

In my world, I am one of the luckiest humans alive. ↗

— Alexander Dale Oen

#am #humans #i #i am #luckiest

To err is human, to purr is feline. ↗

— Robert Byrne

#err #error #feline #human #humor

I've always been interested in the relationship between total external surround, culture, the political matrix, technology, etc., and the internal human consciousness. ↗

— Norman Spinrad

#been #between #consciousness #culture #etc

Scholars discern motions in history & formulate these motions into rules that govern the rises & falls of civilizations. My belief runs contrary, however. To wit: history admits no rules; only outcomes. What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts. What precipitates acts? Belief. Belief is both prize & battlefield, within the mind & in the mind’s mirror, the world. If we believe humanity is a ladder of tribes, a colosseum of confrontation, exploitation & bestiality, such a humanity is surely brought into being, & history's Horroxes, Boerhaaves & Gooses shall prevail. You & I, the moneyed, the privileged, the fortunate, shall not fare so badly in this world, provided our luck holds. What of it if our consciences itch? Why undermine the dominance of our race, our gunships, our heritage & our legacy? Why fight the “natural” (oh, weaselly word!) order of things? Why? Because of this:—one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. Yes, the devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul. For the human species, selfishness is extinction. Is this the doom written within our nature? If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth & claw, if we believe divers races & creeds can share this world as peaceably as the orphans share their candlenut tree, if we believe that leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable & the riches of the Earth & its Oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass. I am not deceived. It is the hardest of worlds to make real. Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president’s pen or a vainglorious general’s sword. A life spent shaping a world I want Jackson to inherit, not one I fear Jackson shall inherit, this strikes me as a life worth the living. ↗

— David Mitchell

#humanity #life-and-living #life

Zoo: An excellent lace to study the habits of human beings ↗

— Evan Esar

#humor #zoo #humor

How exquisitely human was the wish for permanent happiness, and how thin human imagination became trying to achieve it. ↗

— Toni Morrison

#human-condition #imagination