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Creatures Quotes

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Creatures Quotes

“Cut a chrysalis open, and you will find a rotting caterpillar. What you will never find is that mythical creature, half caterpillar, half butterfly, a fit emblem for the human soul, for those whose cast of mind leads them to seek such emblems. No, the process of transformation consists almost entirely of decay.”

MindHumansSoulProcessHalfCuttingFitCreaturesTransformationCastsButterflyDecayHuman SoulCaterpillarsRottingEmblemsDeteriorationMythical CreaturesChrysalis
Author:Pat Barker
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“And in that hour, The seeds of cruelty, that since have swell'd To such gigantic and enormous growth, Were sown in human nature's fruitful soil. Hence date the persecution and the pain That man inflicts on all inferior kinds, Regardless of their plaints.”

MenHumansKindPainGrowthHoursAnimalHuman NatureCreaturesSeedsEnormousCrueltySoilInferiorsPersecution
Book:The poetical works of William Cowper: Complete ed., with memoir, explanatory notes etc
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“Coral reefs are under assault. They are rapidly being degraded by human activities. They are over-fished, bombed and poisoned. They are smothered by sediment, and choked by algae growing on nutrient-rich sewage and fertilizer run-off. They are damaged by irresponsible tourism and are being severely stressed by the warming of the world's oceans. Each of these pressures is bad enough in itself, but together, the cocktail is proving lethal.”

WorldHumansEnoughRunningTogetherAnimalRichGrowingActivityProveCreaturesOceanPressureAssaultStressedIrresponsibleTourismCocktailsHuman ActivityReefsNutrientsFertilizerSewageAlgaeCoral Reefs
Author:Klaus Topfer
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“Leaving the complications of the human breakfast-table out of account, in an elemental sense, the egg only exists to produce the chicken. But the chicken does not exist only in order to produce another egg. He may also exist to amuse himself, to praise God, and even to suggest ideas to a French dramatist. Being a conscious life, he is, or may be, valuable in himself.”

HumansMayDoeIdeasOrderAnimalProduceCreaturesConsciousAccountsPraiseTablesLeavingValuableEggsChickensBreakfastComplicationElementalsPraise God
Book:The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“There is a historic strain of dominion theology which says, taking its references from the Psalms, that man is made just a little lower than God, and that we are the crown of creation. That interpretation has come at the expense of the one that says when God, in the story of Noah, intervened to save human life against the flood, against the acts of nature, He did not stop with human beings. He made sure that every kind of animal was represented twice on that ark.”

MenHumansKindLittlesMadeStoriesHuman BeingsAnimalCreationCreaturesTheologyHuman LifeInterpretationExpensesCrownsFloodStrainHistoricDominionPsalmsArk
Author:Bill Moyers
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“Every victory of man over man has in itself a taste of defeat.... There is no essential difference between the various human groups, creatures whose bones and brains and members are the same; and every damage we do there is a form of mutilation, as if the fingers of the left hand were to be cut off by the right.”

IfsMenHumansHandsFormWinningLeftDifferencesBrainCuttingGroupsVictoryTasteCreaturesMembersEssentialsFingersDefeatVariousBonesDamageLeft HandMutilation
Book:the zodiac arch
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“It may be from some moral obliquity in myself, or from some strange disease; but for me, and I should think too for every human being in whose breast a human heart is beating, to know that one single creature is in that dreadful place would make a hell of heaven itself. And they have hearts in heaven, for they love there.”

ThinkingKnowsShouldHumansHeartMayHeavenHuman BeingsMoralHellStrangeCreaturesDiseaseBreastsHuman Heart
Book:The Nemesis of Faith
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“The classical argument for why a supposedly decent and moral creature like Homo sapiens can mistreat and even extirpate other species rests upon an extreme position in a continuum. The Cartesian tradition, formulated explicitly in the seventeenth century, but developed in "folk" and other versions throughout human history no doubt, holds that other animals are little more than unfeeling machines, with only humans enjoying "consciousness," however defined.”

HumansLittlesEnjoyAnimalConsciousnessMoralDoubtCenturyPositionCreaturesArgumentTraditionMachinesSpeciesFolksExtremesVersionsDefinedDecentNo DoubtHuman HistoryHomo SapiensContinuumUnfeelingMistreat
Author:Stephen Jay Gould
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“There are various methods by which you may achieve ignominy and shame. By murdering a large and respected family in cold blood and afterward depositing their bodies in the water companies' reservoir, you will gain much unpopularity in the neighborhood of your crime, and even robbing a church will get you cordially disliked, especially by the vicar. But if you desire to drain to the dregs the fullest cup of scorn and hatred that a fellow human creature can pour out for you, let a young mother hear you call dear baby "it.”

IfsHumansMayBodyYoungMotherDesireWaterChurchCompanyBloodAchieveCrimeBabyColdCreaturesGainsHatredShameMethodFellowsDearVariousCupsNeighborhoodScornDrainsReservoirsRobbingDregsVicarsYoung MotherIgnominy
Book:Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
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“This is a time when it is frightening to be alive, when it is hard to think of human beings as rational creatures. Everywhere we look we see brutality, stupidity, until it seems that there is nothing else to be seen but that--a descent into barbarism, everywhere, which we are unable to check. But I think that while it is true there is a general worsening, it is precisely because things are so frightening we become hypnotized, and do not notice--or if we notice, belittle--equally strong forces on the other side, the forces, in short, of reason, sanity and civilization.”

IfsThinkingHumansLooksHardReasonSeemsStrongForceSidesHuman BeingsAliveCivilizationCreaturesStupidityChecksRationalSanityFrighteningBrutalityDescentBarbarismBelittle
Book:Prisons We Choose to Live Inside
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“Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs.”

ShouldHumansPersonsFeelingsWould BeHuman BeingsPleasureAnimalChangedFoolPromiseCreaturesConscienceIntelligentSelfishSatisfiedBeastConsentAllowanceBeing SelfishRascalsDunces
Book:The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill
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“And thus, in full, there are four classes: the men who feel nothing, and therefore see truly; the men who feel strongly, think weakly, and see untruly (second order of poets); the men who feel strongly, think strongly, and see truly (first order of poets); and the men who, strong as human creatures can be, are yet submitted to influences stronger than they, and see in a sort untruly, because what they see is inconceivably above them. This last is the usual condition of prophetic inspiration.”

ThinkingMenFeelsFirstsHumansInspirationLastsOrderStrongClassFourInfluenceConditionsHe ManPoetCreaturesStrongerUsualProphetic
Book:The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings
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“How do we define, how do we describe, how do we explain and/or understand ourselves? What sort of creatures do we take ourselves to be? What are we? Who are we? Why are we? How do we come to be what or who we are or take ourselves to be? How do we give an account of ourselves? How do we account for ourselves, our actions, interactions, transactions (praxis), our biologic processes? Our specific human existence?”

GivingHumansActionProcessExistenceCreaturesAccountsWho We AreInteractionOur ActionsHuman ExistenceTransactionsPraxis
Author:R. D. Laing
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“Whatever was in the human nature of Christ was moved at the bidding of the divine will; yet it does not follow that in Christ there was no movement of the will proper to human nature, for the good wills of other saints are moved by God's will... For although the will cannot be inwardly moved by any creature, yet it can be moved inwardly by God.”

HumansDoeChristHuman NatureMovementDivineCreaturesMovedSaintGods WillGood WillBiddingDivine Will
Book:Summa Theologica, Volume 4 (Part III, First Section)
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“Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible; Shakespeare's plays, for instance, seem to hang there complete by themselves. But when the web is pulled askew, hooked up at the edge, torn in the middle, one remembers that these webs are not spun in midair by incorporeal creatures, but are the work of suffering human beings, and are attached to the grossly material things, like health and money and the houses we live in.”

WritingHumansStillsPlaySeemsRememberSufferingHouseHuman BeingsFictionFourMiddleMaterialsCreaturesEdgesCornersInstanceAttachmentTornSpidersHookedMaterial ThingsSpunShakespeare's Plays
Author:Virginia Woolf
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“There are, indeed, few merrier spectacles than that of many windmills bickering together in a fresh breeze over a woody country; their halting alacrity of movement, their pleasant business, making bread all day with uncouth gesticulation; their air, gigantically human, as of a creature half alive, put a spirit of romance into the tamest landscape.”

HumansCountryTogetherRomanceSpiritHalfAliveAirMovementWindCreaturesBreadLandscapePleasantBreezeWoodySpectaclesBickeringWindmillsUncouthAlacrity
Book:Dreams of elsewhere: the selected travel writings of Robert Louis Stevenson
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“I write from a thorough conviction that it is the duty of me, and with the belief that, after every drawback and shortcoming, I do my best, all things considered--that is for me, and, so being, the not being listened to by one human creature would, I hope, in nowise affect me.”

WritingHumansBeliefDutyCreaturesAll ThingsConvictionShortcomingsThoroughDrawbacks
Book:Love Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
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“I am constantly astonished by the people, otherwise intelligent, who think that anything so complex and delicate as a marriage can be left to take care of itself. One sees them fussing about all sorts of lesser concerns, apparently unaware that side by side with them often in the same bed a human creature is perishing from lack of affection, of emotional malnutrition.”

PeopleThinkingHumansCareLeftSidesEmotionalBedCreaturesConcernIntelligentComplexesAffectionTake CareDelicateMalnutritionPerishingFussing
Author:Robertson Davies
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“Very little comes easily to our poor, benighted species (the first creature, after all, to experiment with the novel evolutionary inventions of self-conscious philosophy and art). Even the most "obvious," "accurate," and "natural" style of thinking or drawing must be regulated by history and won by struggle. Solutions must therefore arise within a social context and record the complex interactions of mind and environment that define the possibility of human improvement.”

ThinkingMindFirstsHumansLittlesArtSelfPhilosophySocialNaturalPoorNovelStruggleRecordsEnvironmentStylePossibilityCreaturesSolutionsConsciousSpeciesComplexesObviousDrawingImprovementExperimentsInventionAriseInteractionAccurateSelf Conscious
Book:Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms
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“Truly speech has wonderful strength and power, that through a mere word, proceeding out of the mouth of a poor human creature, the devil, that so proud and powerful spirit, should be driven away, shamed and confounded.”

ShouldHumansSpiritPoorPowerfulWonderfulProudCreaturesSpeechMouthsDevilMereDrivenProceeding
Book:The table talk or familiar discourse of Martin Luther, tr. by W. Hazlitt
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“The difference between tragedy and comedy is the difference between experience and intuition. In the experience we strive against every condition of our animal life: against death, against the frustration of ambition, against the instability of human love. In the intuition we trust the arduous eccentricities we're born to, and see the oddness of a creature who has never got acclimatized to being created.”

HumansBornDifferencesAnimalComedyConditionsCreaturesAmbitionTragedyStriveIntuitionFrustrationInstabilityEccentricityHuman LoveAnimal LifeTragedy And ComedyOddness
Author:Christopher Fry
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“It is not just contemporary industrial society that is dysfunctional; it is civilization itself. We humans are born to be creatures of the land and the sea and the stars; we are relations to the animals, cohorts to the plants. Our well being, and the well-being of the very planet depend on our pursuance of our given place within the natural world.”

WorldHumansWellsGivenStarsBornNaturalAnimalSeaLandPlanetsDependsCivilizationCreaturesRelationPlantContemporaryWell BeingNatural World
Author:Chellis Glendinning
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“The everlasting covenant which God has made with Jesus, and through Jesus with all His beloved people, individually, is a strong ground of consolation amidst the tremblings of human hope, the fluctuations of creature things, and the instability of all that earth calls good.”

PeopleHumansMadeEarthJesusStrongCreaturesBelovedConsolationEverlastingCovenantTremblingInstabilityFluctuation
Book:Midnight harmonies, or, Thoughts for the season of solitude & sorrow
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“The 20th century mind is nostalgic for the paradise that once existed on the mushroom dotted plains of Africa where the plant-human symbiosis occurred that pulled us out of the animal body and into the tool-using, culture-making, imagination-exploring creature that we are. And why does this matter? It matters because it shows that the way out is back and that the future is a forward escape into the past. This is what the psychedelic experience means. Its a doorway out of history and into the wiring under the board in eternity.”

WayMindHumansMeanDoeMatterShowsBodyPastCultureImaginationAnimalCenturyCreaturesToolsEternityPlantBoardsParadiseExploring20th CenturyPsychedelicDoorwaysNostalgicMushroomsPsychedelic ExperienceWiringSymbiosis
Author:Terence McKenna
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“Human beings are many-layered creatures, and do not succumb to the hegemony of others as easily as historians and politicians sometimes imply. Those Welsh, Scottish and Anglo-Irish individuals who became part of the British Establishment in this period did not in the main sell out in the sense of becoming Anglicised look-alikes. Instead, they became British in a new and intensely profitable fashion, while remaining in their own minds and behavior Welsh, or Scottish, or Irish aswell.”

MindHumansLooksSometimesIndividualHuman BeingsFashionBecomingPeriodsPoliticianCreaturesBehaviorSellsBritishHistorianEstablishmentProfitableScottishBritish HistoryHegemonyWelsh
Author:Linda Colley
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