The Fourteenth Book is entitled, "What can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?"
It doesn't take long to read The Fourteenth Book. It consists of one word and a period.
This is it: "Nothing.
People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.
Fyodor DostoevskyWhen it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples.
Stephen CraneTag: existence mankind naturalism
Man is an animal who more than any other can adapt himself to all climates and circumstances.
Henry David ThoreauTag: mankind
It is naturally given to all men to esteem their own inventions best.
Thomas MoreTag: humanity mankind vanity invention
To me, history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. To me, it's an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art or music is."
[The Title Always Comes Last; NEH 2003 Jefferson Lecturer interview profile]
Tag: life civic-duty civic-responsibility history humanity mankind responsibility
If mankind's greatest achievement is to produce more spaces for mankind to live in, I do not think I am so impressed.
Sharon ShinnTag: mankind
Humans see what they want to see.
Rick RiordanTag: perception humanity willful-ignorance mankind humans self-delusion
It's funny how humans can wrap their mind around things and fit them into their version of reality.
Rick RiordanTag: reality humanity mankind humans
It sounds like a fairy-tale, but not only that; this story of what man by his science and practical inventions has achieved on this earth, where he first appeared as a weakly member of the animal kingdom, and on which each individual of his species must ever again appear as a helpless infant... is a direct fulfilment of all, or of most, of the dearest wishes in his fairy-tales. All these possessions he has acquired through culture. Long ago he formed an ideal conception of omnipotence and omniscience which he embodied in his gods. Whatever seemed unattainable to his desires - or forbidden to him - he attributed to these gods. One may say, therefore, that these gods were the ideals of his culture. Now he has himself approached very near to realizing this ideal, he has nearly become a god himself. But only, it is true, in the way that ideals are usually realized in the general experience of humanity. Not completely; in some respects not at all, in others only by halves. Man has become a god by means of artificial limbs, so to speak, quite magnificent when equipped with all his accessory organs; but they do not grow on him and they still give him trouble at times... Future ages will produce further great advances in this realm of culture, probably inconceivable now, and will increase man's likeness to a god still more.
Sigmund FreudTag: science prediction future humanity fulfillment mankind culture gods desire wish fairy-tale omniscience forbidden omnipotence
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