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Animal Quotes

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Animal Quotes

“Of all the ways of defining man, the worst is the one which makes him out to be a rational animal.”

Men Way Literature Animal Worst Rational Defining

Author:Anatole France

“Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice-and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man-by choice; he has to hold his life as a value-by choice; he has to learn to sustain it-by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues-by choice. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.”

Men Has Beens Matter Values Choices Animal Practice Virtue Morality Offers Accepted Rational Alternatives Code Rationality Suicidal

Author:John Galt

“Man is a rational animal—so at least I have been told. … Aristotle, so far as I know, was the first man to proclaim explicitly that man is a rational animal. His reason for this view was … that some people can do sums. … It is in virtue of the intellect that man is a rational animal. The intellect is shown in various ways, but most emphatically by mastery of arithmetic. The Greek system of numerals was very bad, so that the multiplication table was quite difficult, and complicated calculations could only be made by very clever people.”

“That the vegetable creation should restore the air which is spoiled by the animal part of it, looks like a rational system, and seems to be of a piece with the rest.”

Should Looks Seems Animal Pieces Air Creation Rational Vegetables Spoiled

Book:The Works of Dr. Benjamin Franklin: Philosophical. Essays and correspondence

Source: The Works of Dr. Benjamin Franklin: Philosophical. Essays and correspondence

“Only to the rational animal is it given to follow voluntarily what happens; but simply to follow is a necessity imposed on all.”

Happens Given Animal Rational

Book:Meditations

Source: Meditations

“There was an idea that God created man different from other animals, because man was rational and animals had drives and instincts. That idea of a rational man that was specially created went out the window when Darwin showed that we evolved from animal ancestors, that we have instincts, much as do animals, and that our instincts are very important. It was a much more sophisticated, nuanced, and rich view of the human mind.”

Men Mind Humans Important Ideas Different Animal Views Rich Window Instinct Rational Human Mind Ancestor Sophisticated

Author:Eric Kandel

“The power of understanding symbols, i.e. of regarding everything about a sense-datum as irrelevant except a certain form that it embodies, is the most characteristic mental trait of mankind. It issues in an unconscious, spontaneous process of abstraction, which goes on all the time in the human mind: a process of recognizing the concept in any configuration given to experience, and forming a conception accordingly. That is the real sense of Aristotle's definition of Man as "the rational animal".”

“Man is a rational animal. He can think up a reason for anything he wants to believe.”

Thinking Men Want Believe Reason Animal Rational

Author:Anatole France

“One of the most revolutionary concepts to grow out of our clinical experience is the growing recognition that innermost core of man's nature - the deepest layers of his personality, the base of his 'animal nature' - is basically socialized, forward-moving, rational and realistic... He is realistically able to control himself, and he is incorrigibly socialized in his desires. There is no beast in man, there is only man in man.”

Men Able Moving Desire Grows Animal Growing Personality Concepts Core Rational Recognition Revolutionary Beast Realistic Layers Clinicals

Author:Carl Rogers