“When humans act like animals, they become the most dangerous of animals to themselves and other humans, and this is because of another critical difference between humans and animals: Whereas animals are usually restrained by the limits of physical appetites, humans have mental appetites that can be far more gross and capacious than physical ones. Only humans squander and hoard, murder and pillage because of notions.” HumansDifferencesAnimalDangerousLimitsMurderNotionCriticalAppetiteConsumerismGrossOverconsumptionHumans And Animals Author:Wendell Berry
“HIBERNATE, v. i. To pass the winter season in domestic seclusion. There have been many singular popular notions about the hibernation of various animals. Many believe that the bear hibernates during the whole winter and subsists by mechanically sucking its paws. It is admitted that it comes out of its retirement in the spring so lean that it has to try twice before it can cast a shadow.” TryingBelieveHas BeensWholeScienceAnimalHumourBearsSpringShadowSeasonsNotionWinterCastsVariousRetirementPawsSeclusionWinter SeasonHibernation Book:Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated) Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“Man is an evasive beast, given to cultivating strange notions about himself. He is humiliated by his simian ancestry, and tries to deny his animal nature, to persuade himself that he is not limited by its weaknesses nor concerned in its fate. And this impulse may be harmless, when it is genuine. But what are we to say when we see the formulas of heroic self-deception made use of by unheroic self-indulgence?” MenTryingMayMadeSelfUseGivenAnimalFateStrangeWeaknessConcernedNotionDenyGenuineDeceptionImpulseBeastFormulasHeroicIndulgenceSelf DeceptionAncestryHumiliatedCultivatingSelf Indulgence Author:Upton Sinclair
“The notion that women are less aesthetically profound and innovative than men--just not very important, if you know what I mean--doubtless spreads back to our beginnings as upright animals: the males hunted and killed for the family while the females stayed home in the cave and tended the strange little creatures they were giving birth to.” IfsKnowsMenGivingMeanLittlesImportantHomeWomenAnimalStrangeBirthCreaturesFemaleProfoundMalesNotionSpreadCavesInnovativeGiving BirthHunted Book:Lee Krasner: paintings from 1965 to 1970 Source: Lee Krasner: paintings from 1965 to 1970
“Fire had an almost magical quality that suggested anything was possible. Early on, man even believed that fire was a god that had to be fed with animal sacrifices in order to burn brightly. Today we have evolved a long way from this ridiculous notion of a 'fire god' and now rightfully understand God to be a bearded being who lives amongst the clouds and hates Jews and homosexuals.” MenWayLongGodTodayHateOrderAnimalQualityFireSacrificeNotionCloudsJewRidiculousFedsHomosexualLong Way Author:Amy Sedaris
“It occurred to me that there have always been selkie women: women who did not seem to belong to this world, because they did not fit into prevailing notions of what women were supposed to be. And if you did not fit into those notions, in some sense you weren't a woman. Weren't even quite human. The magical animal woman is, or can be, a metaphor for those sorts of women.” IfsWorldHumansSeemsAnimalThis WorldFitNotionMetaphorSupposed To BeMen WomenPrevailing Author:Theodora
“It seems to me perfectly possible to act humanely towards other beings, whether humans or animals or plants. One simply has to learn how to behave. To behave "humanely" it is perfectly possible to do without the notion of "humanity."” HumansSeemsHumanityAnimalPlantNotionBehave Author:Talal Asad
“I don't understand the notion that modern farming is anything do to with nature. It's a pretty gross interference with nature. I think it ought to be governed by the standards of how it affects the individual animals, just as we'd want to deal with institutions that deal with humans by how they affect individual humans.” ThinkingWantHumansIndividualAnimalDealsModernOughtStandardsInstitutionsNotionGrossFarmingInterference Author:Peter Singer
“We shall have to share out the fruits of technology among the whole of mankind. The notion that the direct and immediate producers of the fruits of technology have a proprietary right to these fruits will have to be forgotten. After all, who is the producer? Man is a social animal, and the immediate producer has been helped to produce by the whole structure of society, beginning with his own education.” MenHas BeensWholeSocialAnimalTechnologyShareMankindProduceDirectStructureFruitNotionForgottenProducers Author:Arnold J. Toynbee