“Implicit in the activist conception of government is the assumption that you can take the good things in a complex system for granted, and just improve the things that are not so good. What is lacking in this conception is any sense that a society, an institution, or even a single human being, is an intricate system of fragile inter-relationships, whose complexities are little understood and easily destabilized.” HumansLittlesGovernmentHuman BeingsUnderstoodInstitutionsGood ThingsComplexesGrantedComplexityAssumptionActivistConceptionFragileLackingIntricateImplicitComplex Systems Book:Is Reality Optional?: And Other Essays Source: Is Reality Optional?: And Other Essays
“The real end of prayer is not so much to get this or that single desire granted, as to put human life into full and joyful conformity with the will of God.” HumansRealEndsDesirePrayerReal LifeGods WillGrantedHuman LifeConformityBeing RealJoyfulSingle Relationship Author:Charles Bent
“God who created us has granted us the faculty of speech that we might disclose the counsels of our hearts to one another and that, since we possess our human nature in common, each of us might share his thoughts with his neighbor, bringing them forth from the secret recesses of the heart as from a treasury.” HumansHeartMightCommonSecretShareHuman NatureSpeechNeighborGrantedFacultyTreasuryRecess Author:Saint Basil
“As a Christian I take it for granted that human history will some day end; and I am offering Omniscience no advice as to the best date for that consummation.” HumansEndsChristianAdviceGrantedOfferingHuman HistoryOmniscience Author:C. S. Lewis
“People who think of themselves as tough-minded and realistic, among them influential political leaders and businessmen as well as go-getters and hustlers of smaller caliber, tend to take it for granted that human nature is selfish and that life is a struggle in which only the fittest may survive. According to this philosophy, the basic law by which man must live, in spite of his surface veneer of civilization, is the law of the jungle. The "fittest" are those who can bring to the struggle superior force, superior cunning, and superior ruthlessness.” PeopleThinkingMenHumansWellsMayPhilosophyLawPoliticalLife IsForceLeaderStruggleHuman NatureCivilizationToughSurfaceSelfishSuperiorsGrantedSpiteRealisticBusinessmanJungleCunningInfluentialPolitical LeadersCaliberRuthlessnessVeneerLife Is A Struggle Author:S. I. Hayakawa
“We were granted the right to exist by the God of our fathers at the glimmer of the dawn of human civilization nearly 4,000 years ago. For that right, which has been sanctified in Jewish blood from generation to generation, we have paid a price unexampled in the annals of the nations.” YearsHumansHas BeensFatherNationsGenerationsBloodCivilizationYears AgoPaidGrantedDawnOur FatherPriceHuman Civilization Author:Menachem Begin
“Aggression, like every other part of human behavior we take for granted, is a challenging engineering problem!” HumansProblemChallengesBehaviorGrantedEngineeringAggressionHuman Behavior Book:How the Mind Works Source: How the Mind Works