Quotessence
Home / Books / The Roots of Heaven

The Roots of Heaven

Book by Romain Gary · 5 quotes · Human Nature, Humanity, Animal Rights

Filter quotes by topic

AllHuman NatureHumanityAnimal RightsDignityFreedomAll You Need Is LoveBelief In HumanityHumankindIndustrializationNeed For LoveSave AnimalsTruth Of LifeWesternizationAffectionCivilization Vs NatureHuman SoulJusticePoliticsSufferingSurvival

The Roots of Heaven Quotes

“Morel is afflicted with too noble a conception of man. He demands too much of human beings, and he refiLses to compromise. You can’t live with that inside you. It becomes almost a question of physiology. What he calls for is not even moral progress; it's really a biological mutation. He can’t accept the very biological limitations which make us what we are — weak, crawling in our mud, and totally devoid of dignity. That's the iron law he’s protesting, the law he refuses to submit to.”

HumanityHuman NatureWeaknessDignityTruth Of Life
Book:The Roots of Heaven
Create image

“You’re right. One has to be mad. [...] Do you remember about the prehistoric reptile, the an- cestor of man, the first to emerge from the mud in early Paleozoic times, a milliard years ago, who set out to live in the air and to breathe, even though he had no lungs? [...] Well, he was mad too. Absolutely bats. That’s why he tried. He’s the ancestor of us all, and we shouldn’t forget it. But for him we wouldn’t be here. He was as crazy as they come. We too have got to try. That's what progress is. By trying like him, perhaps we’ll wind up with the necessary organs, the organ of dignity, of decency, or of fraternity.”

HumanityDignityTruth Of LifeDecencyFraternityEvolution Of ManBecoming HumanEvolution Of Humans
Book:The Roots of Heaven
Create image

“Islam calls that ’the roots of heaven.’ and to the Mexican Indians it is the 'tree of life' — the thing that makes both of them fall on their knees and raise their eyes and beat their tormented breasts. A need for protection and company, from which obstinate people like Morel try to escape by means of petitions, fighting committees, by trying to take the protection of species in their own hands. Our needs for justice, for freedom and dignity— are roots of heaven that are deeply embedded in our hearts, but of heaven itself men know nothing but the gripping roots ...”

JusticeFreedomDignityIslamTree Of Life
Book:The Roots of Heaven
Create image

“Peer Qvist, grasping the Bible in his hands and reaffirming to the Court his determination to carry on his defense of the whole infinite variety of roots which Heaven had planted in the earth and also in the depths of the human soul — roots which gripped them like a premonition and a longing, a tortured aspiration, a craving for justice, for dignity, freedom and love.”

JusticeFreedomDignityHuman SoulAspirationsTree Of LifeValues And Principles
Book:The Roots of Heaven
Create image