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Human Species Quotes

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Human Species Quotes

“Though normally the handshake simply confirmed the trustworthiness of an agreement, with perhaps an aura of divine protection, Attic grave reliefs suggest a further extension of the idea for they "show handshaking as a symbol of Faith at the parting between the dead and the living. Thus, handshaking was not only a sign of agreement among the living, but the gesture of trust and faith in the supreme departure." With us the handshake is hardly a conscious gesture, but nonetheless one does not expect to be attacked by someone with whom one has just shaken hands. A refusal of a proffered handshake, however, would make the ritual gesture conscious indeed: breaking the ritual raises ominous questions that would require an explanation.”

SocietyTrustMoralityCivilizationRitualCognitionHuman Species
Book:Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age
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“The anthropologist Clifford Geertz says that humans are ‘symbolizing, conceptualizing, meaning-seeking’ animals. In our species, he says, ‘the drive to make sense out of our experience, to give it form and order, is evidently as real and as pressing as the more familiar biological needs.’ To Geertz, a human being is an organism ‘which cannot live in a world it is unable to understand.”

HumansHuman NatureHuman SpeciesMeaning MakingSensemakingClifford GeertzGeertz
Book:Triumph Of Narrative
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“While we maintain the unity of the human species, we at the same time repel the depressing assumption of superior and inferior races of men. There are nations more susceptible of cultivation, more highly civilized, more ennobled by mental cultivation than others—but none in themselves nobler than others.”

HumanityRaceIdentityRacismUnityHumanismEqualityCivilizedHomo SapiensHuman Species
Book:Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe: Part One, 1858
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“The difficulty is that, so long as unreason prevails, a solution of our troubles can only be reached by chance; for while reason, being impersonal, makes universal co-operation possible, unreason, since it represents private passions, makes strife inevitable. It is for this reason that rationality, in the sense of an appeal to a universal and impersonal standard of truth, is of supreme importance to the well-being of the human species.”

ReasonTruthUniversalWell BeingCooperationRationalityHuman SpeciesPassionsUnreasonImpersonal
Book:In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays
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“All issues in the society prevail, because the person thinks, the self is separate from the society. And this is the gravest mistake that any sentient species could ever make. With great sentience, comes great responsibility.”

Social ResponsibilitySocial IssuesBe The ChangeSocial DevelopmentHuman SpeciesHuman ProgressCitizens Of The World
Book:Citizens of Peace: Beyond the Savagery of Sovereignty
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“I had written the sentence, 'You mustn't think that the evolution that gave rise to us was the only evolutionary possibility on this planet. . . . that cultural developments could be shaped through the mediation of another animal species. If the biological conditions were favorable, some civilization not inferior to our own could arise in the depths of the sea. . . . Would it do the same stupid things mankind has done? Would it invite the same historical calamities? What would we say if some animal other than man declared that its education and its numbers gave it the sole right to occupy the entire world and hold sway over all creation?”

EvolutionHuman SpeciesHuman StupidityHuman Arrogance
Author:Karel Capek
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“Humans became able to move much more freely through the landscape because their support networks were more stable over time. These supportive relations between groups made it possible for sapiens to colonize forbidding environments with very limited foods supplies, supporting only very small residential groups. A band of a family or two would not be stable over the long term, without support from a wider network. While small groups can penetrate harsher environments, they need social risk management. They need to be able to reconnect at times of need.”

LanguageEvolutionEvolutionary PsychologyHomo SapiensHuman SpeciesUltrasociality
Book:From Signal to Symbol: The Evolution of Language
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“Our deep-time ancestors very likely had the genetic resources needed for formal quantitative reasoning, but without the cultural invention of numerals and a umber line, those resources could not be exploited. The same may be true of language. The central role of cultural learning in the construction and transmission of language (qua social phenomenon) is enough to show that the use of language depends on cultural scaffolds, not just appropriate genetic potential.”

LanguageEvolutionEvolutionary PsychologyHomo SapiensHuman SpeciesUltrasociality
Book:From Signal to Symbol: The Evolution of Language
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“Nin knew how much humans loved money, riches, and material things-though he never really could understand why. The more technologically advanced the human species got, the more isolated they seemed to become, at the same time. It was alarming, how humans could spend entire lifetimes engaged in all kinds of activities, without getting any closer to knowing who they really were, inside.”

HumansKindMoneyKnowingMaterialsActivityLifetimeSpeciesRichesAll KindsEngagedIsolatedMaterial ThingsHuman Species
Book:The Other Side of Life (Book #1, Cyberpunk Elven Trilogy)
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“The human species is often amazingly inventive and industrious but at the same time profoundly lazy. It's very clear that we humans don't like to work. This aversion to work is so extreme - and our ingenuity so acute - that we're eager to devote countless hours designing and building devices that might shave a few minutes off our workday”

HumansMightHoursClearMinutesDesignBuildingSpeciesExtremesLazyDevicesIngenuityAversionHuman SpeciesIndustrious
Book:Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
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“Unlike the pattern which seems to prevail in the rest of life, in the human species the weak not only survive but often triumph over the strong. The self-hatred inherent in the weak unlocks energies far more formidable then those mobilized by an ordinary struggle for existence.”

HumansSelfSeemsEnergyStrongExistenceStruggleOrdinaryWeakHatredSpeciesPatternsTriumphInherentFormidableHuman SpeciesSelf HatredRest Of LifeStruggle For Existence
Book:Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
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“The correct relationship between the higher and lower classes, the appropriate mutual interaction between the two is, as such, the true underlying support on which the improvement of the human species rests. The higher classes constitute the mind of the single large whole of humanity; the lower classes constitute its limbs; the former are the thinking and designing [ Entwerfende ] part, the latter the executive part.”

ThinkingMindHumansTwoWholeHumanityClassSupportDesignHigherSpeciesImprovementFormerAppropriateLatterExecutivesMutualInteractionLimbsHuman SpeciesLower Class
Author:Johann Gottlieb Fichte
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“The human species does not necessarily move in stages from progress to progress ... history and civilization do not advance in tandem. From the stagnation of Medieval Europe to the decline and chaos in recent times on the mainland of Asia and to the catastrophes of two world wars in the twentieth century, the methods of killing people became increasingly sophisticated. Scientific and technological progress certainly does not imply that humankind as a result becomes more civilized.”

PeopleWorldHumansDoeTwoWarMovingResultsProgressCenturyStageCivilizationEuropeMethodSpeciesChaosKillingWar Of The WorldsCivilizedDeclineHumankindWorld War ISophisticatedTechnologicalCatastropheAsiaTwentieth CenturyMedievalStagnationHuman SpeciesTwo WorldsTechnological ProgressTandemMedieval Europe
Author:Gao Xingjian
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“Nature actually works through intense cooperation. There is competition in nature , but it thrives through cooperation. We don't teach this to our kids. It's actually a violent ideology. It's why kids go into school and bully each other and god forbid do things even worse. Cooperation will become the marching orders of the human species or we're not going to make it.”

HumansKidsSchoolOrderTeachCompetitionSpeciesViolentIntenseIdeologyThriveCooperationBullyHuman Species
Author:Tom Shadyac
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“The ruling British elite are like animals--not only in their morality, but in their outlook on knowledge. They are clever animals, who are masters of the wicked nature of their own species, and recognize ferally the distinctions of the hated human species. Nonetheless, obsessively dedicated to being such animals, they can not [sic] assimilate those qualities unique to true human beings.”

HumansHuman BeingsAnimalQualityMastersMoralityUniqueSpeciesBritishCleverHatedWickedDistinctionDedicatedElitesCan NotRulingOutlookHuman Species
Book:The Secrets Known Only To The Inner Elites
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“My deeply held belief is that if a god of anything like the traditional sort exists, our curiosity and intelligence are provided by such a god. We would be unappreciative of those gifts (as well as unable to take such a course of action) if we suppressed our passion to explore the universe and ourselves. On the other hand, if such a traditional god does not exist, our curiosity and our intelligence are the essential tools for managing our survival. In either case, the enterprise of knowledge is consistent with both science and religion, and is essential for the welfare of the human species.”

IfsHumansWellsDoeHandsWould BeActionUniversePassionCoursesBeliefCasesEssentialsSurvivalToolsSpeciesCuriosityTraditionalWelfareEnterpriseConsistentScience And ReligionHuman Species
Book:Broca's brain: reflections on the romance of science
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“You should know as much as you can about the human species if you have a hand in designing human society. Of course, I'm not saying that you can derive moral rules from nature - that's deriving an ought from an is, as the philosophers say - but you do need to know what kind of animals we are if you want to design a stable society.”

IfsKnowsWantNeedsShouldHumansKindHandsAnimalMoralDesignOughtSpeciesPhilosopherStableHuman SocietyHuman Species
Author:Frans de Waal
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“(Five) thinkers since Galileo, each informing his successor of what discoveries his own lifetime had seen achieved, might have passed the torch of science into our hands as we sit here in this room. Indeed, for the matter of that, an audience much smaller than the present one, an audience of some 5 or 6 score people, if each person in it could speak for his own generation, would carry us away to the black unknown of the human species, to days without a document or monument to tell their tale.”

PeopleIfsHumansPersonsMatterHandsMightSpeakBlackRoomsAudienceFiveGenerationsDiscoveryLifetimeSpeciesTalesScoreThinkerDocumentsMonumentTorchesSuccessorsHuman SpeciesInforming
Book:William James: Essays and Lectures
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“I am provoked at the contempt which most historians show for humanity in general; one would think by them, that the whole human species consisted but of about a hundred and fifty people, called and dignified (commonly very undeservedly too) by the titles of Emperors, Kings, Popes, Generals, and Ministers.”

PeopleThinkingHumansWholeShowsHumanityHistoryKingsHundredSpeciesTitlesMinistersFiftyHistorianContemptPopeEmperorHuman SpeciesProvoked
Author:Lord Chesterfield
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“As kings are begotten and born like other men, it is to be presumed that they are of the human species; and perhaps, had they thesame education, they might prove like other men. But, flattered from their cradles, their hearts are corrupted, and their heads are turned, so that they seem to be a species by themselves.... Flattery cannot be too strong for them; drunk with it from their infancy, like old drinkers, they require dreams.”

MenHumansHeartDreamSeemsMightStrongBornKingsProveSpeciesDrunkFlatteryRoyaltyCradleInfancyFlatteredDrinkersHuman Species
Book:The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author
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