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Limits Quotes

“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
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“The study of letters is the study of the operation of human force, of human freedom and activity; the study of nature is the study of the operation of non-human forces, of human limitation and passivity. The contemplation of human force and activity tends naturally to heighten our own force and activity; the contemplation of human limits and passivity tends rather to check it. Therefore the men who have had the humanistic training have played, and yet play, so prominent a part in human affairs, in spite of their prodigious ignorance of the universe.”

MenHumansPlayScienceUniverseForceEducationStudyIgnoranceHe ManActivityLimitsTrainingLettersAffairChecksLimitationOperationsContemplationSpiteProminentPassivityHuman FreedomHumanisticProdigious
Book:Schools and Universities on the Continent
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“The attitude of the true scientist towards the real limits of human understanding was unforgettably impressed on me in early youth by the obviously unpremeditated words of a great biologist; Alfred Kuhn finished a lecture to the Austrian Academy of Science with Goethe 's words, "It is the greatest joy of the man of thought to have explored the explorable and then calmly to revere the inexplorable." After the last word he hesitated, raised his hand in repudiation and cried, above the applause, "No, not calmly, gentlemen; not calmly!”

MenHumansRealHandsLastsJoyUnderstandingAttitudeYouthHe ManLimitsScientistRaisedFinishedGentlemanCriedImpressedLast WordsLecturesApplauseAcademyBiologist
Author:Konrad Lorenz
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“Reason cannot desire for man any condition other than that in which not only every individual enjoys the most absolute, unbounded freedom to develop himself out of himself, in true individuality, but in which physical nature, as well, need receive no other shaping by human hands than that which is given to her voluntarily by each individual, according to the measure of his wants and his inclinations, restricted only by the limits of his energy and his rights.”

MenWantNeedsHumansWellsReasonHandsDesireIndividualEnergyGivenEnjoyRightsConditionsLimitsAbsolutesIndividualityInclinationHuman Hands
Author:Wilhelm von Humboldt
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“No conclusions can be more agreeable to scepticism than such as make discoveries concerning the weakness and narrow limits of human reason and capacity.”

HumansReasonLimitsWeaknessDiscoveryCapacityConclusionScepticismHuman Reason
Book:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding ; [with] A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh ; [and] An Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature
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“[I]f we could have devised an arrangement for providing everybody with music in their homes, perfect in quality, unlimited in quantity, suited to every mood, and beginning and ceasing at will, we should have considered the limit of human felicity already attained, and ceased to strive for further improvements.”

ShouldHumansHomePerfectQualityLimitsShould HaveStriveImprovementMoodQuantityProvidingArrangementsUnlimitedFelicity
Book:Looking Backward, 2000 to 1887: American literature
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“Some god or Weltgeist has been making a movie out of us for the past six thousand years, and now we have turned a corner on the movie set of reality and have discovered the boards propping up the two-dimensional monuments of human history. The movement of humanism has reached its limit, and now at that limit it is breaking apart into the opposites of mechanism and mysticism and moving along the circumference of a vast new sphere of posthuman thought.”

YearsHumansHas BeensTwoRealityPastMovingMovementThousandLimitsSixOppositesHarmonyHumanismCornersBoardsMysticismSpheresMechanismThousand YearsHuman HistoryMonumentHuman ThoughtMovie SetsBreaking Apart
Book:Passages about Earth: An Exploration of the New Planetary Culture
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“The authority of Plato and Aristotle, of Zeno and Epicurus, still reigned in the schools; and their systems, transmitted with blind deference from one generation of disciples to another, precluded every generous attempt to exercise the powers, or enlarge the limits, of the human mind.”

MindHumansStillsSchoolGrowthGenerationsExerciseLimitsAuthorityBlindGenerousHuman MindDisciplePlatoDeferencePlato And Aristotle
Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1
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“Technological civilization... rests fundamentally on power-driven machinery which transcends the physical limits of its human directors, multiplying indefinitely the capacity for the production of goods. Science in all its branches - physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology - is the servant and upholder of this system”

HumansPsychologyCivilizationDirectorsLimitsCapacityProductionsDrivenPhysicsServantBranchesBiologyGoodsChemistryTechnologicalMachineryMultiplying
Author:Charles A. Beard
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“We [climbers] demonstrate in the most stunning way of all - at the risk of our lives - that there is no limit to the effort man can demand of himself. This quality is the basis of all human achievementit can never be proved enough. I consider that we climbers - that I - serve all humanity. We prove that there is no limit to what man can do.”

MenWayHumansEnoughHumanityCan DoEffortQualityOur LivesRiskDemandProveLimitsBasesStunningClimbers
Author:Walter Bonatti
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“Comics play a trite but lusty tune on the C natural keys of human nature. They rouse the most primitive, but also the most powerful, reverberations in the noisy cranial sound-box of consciousness, drowning out more subtle symphonies. Comics scorn finesse, thereby incurring the wrath of linguistic adepts. They defy the limits of accepted fact and convention, thus amortizing to apoplexy the ossified arteries of routine thought.”

HumansBookPlayFactsSoundNaturalPowerfulConsciousnessHuman NatureKeysLimitsBoxesAcceptedComicTunesSubtleMost PowerfulRoutineConventionsPrimitiveComic BookWrathScornDrowningSymphonyNoisyArteriesFinesseReverberationIncurring
Author:William Moulton Marston
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“Religion claims to be in possession of an absolute truth; but its history is a history of errors and heresies. It gives us the promise and prospect of a transcendent world - far beyond the limits of our human experience - and it remains human, all too human.”

WorldGivingHumansAtheismPromiseLimitsClaimsAbsolutesRemainsErrorsPossessionPositive AtheismHuman ExperienceHeresyTranscendentAbsolute Truth
Book:An essay on man: an introduction to a philosophy of human culture
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“Providence has fixed the limits of human enjoyment by immovable boundaries, and has set different gratifications at such a distance from each other, that no art or power can bring them together. This great law it is the business of every rational being to understand, that life may not pass away in an attempt to make contradictions consistent, to combine opposite qualities, and to unite things which the nature of their being must always keep asunder.”

HumansMayArtDifferentTogetherLawQualityLimitsOppositesDistanceBoundariesRationalFixedEnjoymentConsistentContradictionProvidenceGratificationPassing Away
Book:Life and Writings
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“While it is possible for intelligence to increase the range of benevolent impulse, and thus prompt a human being to consider the needs and rights of other than those to whom he is bound by organic and physical relationship, there are definite limits in the capacity of ordinary mortals which makes it impossible for them to grant to others what they claim for themselves.”

NeedsHumansHuman BeingsRightsImpossibleLimitsOrdinaryCapacityClaimsIncreaseBoundsMortalsImpulseRangeGrantsDefiniteBenevolentPrompts
Book:Reinhold Niebuhr: Major Works on Religion and Politics: (Library of America #263)
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“Well, Nigeria has played a constructive role in peacekeeping in various parts of West Africa. But unless and until Nigeria itself is democratic and respects human rights, it too may well be a source of much greater instability as political repression limits the ability of the people of Nigeria to achieve their full potential.”

PeopleHumansWellsMayPoliticalAbilityRolesGreaterRightsAchieveSourceLimitsDemocraticWestHuman RightsVariousConstructiveRepressionNigeriaInstabilityFull PotentialPeacekeepingWest AfricaNigeria IndependencePolitical Instability
Author:Susan Rice
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“How has all the knowledge in the world been gained but by the concentration of the powers of the mind? The world is ready to give up its secrets if we only know how to knock, how to give it the necessary blow. The strength and force of the blow come through concentration. There is no limit to the power of the human mind. The more concentrated it is, the more power is brought to bear on one point; that is the secret.”

IfsKnowsWorldGivingMindHumansForceSecretKnow HowReadyBearsLimitsGiving UpBlowConcentrationHuman MindPower Of The MindReady To Give Up
Book:Raja Yoga: Conquering the Internal Nature
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“I became a little alarmed at the number of my readers who took the meme more positively as a theory of human culture in its own right - either to criticize it (unfairly, given my original modest intention) or to carry it far beyond the limits of what I then thought justified. This was why I may have seemed to backtrack.”

HumansMayLittlesCultureGivenNumbersAtheismTheoryReaderLimitsOriginalsIntentionPositive AtheismCriticizeModestJustifiedPositivelyMemes
Book:A Devil's Chaplain
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“It is a human circumstance that when we are born we have not yet come into existence. We are lured into our special human existence by a mothering presence that gratifies our innate urges to be suckled, held, rocked, caressed. But that same gratifying presence puts limits on desire and rations satisfaction. In this sense the mother is also the first lawgiver.”

FirstsHumansMotherDesireBornExistenceSpecialCircumstancesLimitsSatisfactionUrgesInnateHuman ExistenceMotheringRations
Book:Adolescence: The Farewell to Childhood
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“Let us become thoroughly sensible of the weakness, blindness, and narrow limits of human reason: Let us duly consider its uncertainty and endless contrarieties, even in subjects of common life and practice.... When these topics are displayed in their full light, as they are by some philosophers and almost all divines; who can retain such confidence in this frail faculty of reason as to pay any regard to its determinations in points so sublime, so abstruse, so remote from common life and experience?”

HumansReasonLightCommonPayPracticeSubjectsDivineLimitsWeaknessDeterminationRegardPhilosopherEndlessUncertaintyFacultySensibleSublimeTopicsBlindnessFrailHuman ReasonCommon Life
Book:Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)
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“There is a strange fact about the human mind, a fact that differentiates the mind sharply from the body. The body is limited in ways that the mind is not. One sign of this is that the body does not continue indefinitely to grow in strength and develop in skill and grace. By the time most people are thirty years old, their bodies are as good as they will ever be; in fact, many persons' bodies have begun to deteriorate by that time. But there is no limit to the amount of growth and development that the mind can sustain. The mind does not stop growing at any particular age.”

PeopleWayYearsMindHumansPersonsDoeFactsBodyAgeGrowsGrowthGraceGrowingParticularStrangeDevelopmentAmountSkillsLimitsThirtyHuman MindThirty YearsDifferentiateThirty Years Old
Author:Mortimer Adler
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“As nature requires whirlwinds and cyclones to release its excessive force in a violent revolt against its own existence, so the spirit requires a demonic human being from time to time whose excessive strength rebels against the community of thought and the monotony of moralityonly by looking at those beyond its limits does humanity come to know its own utmost limits.”

KnowsHumansDoeSpiritHumanityForceCommunityHuman BeingsExistenceProgressLimitsViolentReleaseRebelRevoltMonotonyDemonicCyclonesExcessive Force
Author:Stefan Zweig
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“Thoroughly to unfold the labyrinths of the human mind is an arduous task.... In order to dive into those recesses and lay them open to the reader in a striking and intelligible manner, 'tis necessary to assume a certain freedom in writing, not strictly perhaps within the limits prescribed by rules.”

WritingMindHumansCertainOrderReaderLimitsTasksLaysAssumingHuman MindLabyrinthRecess
Book:The Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia
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“As an element in human progress, the right of private property, in importance, has taken first and almost only place in the current systems of law and of political economy. While admitting its great importance, we cannot conceal the fact that the writers on those subjects have wholly failed to distinguish between its use and its abuse, or to recognize its rational and equitable limits.”

FirstsHumansFactsUseLawPoliticalEconomyTakenProgressSubjectsLimitsElementsAbuseImportancePropertyCurrentsRationalPrivate PropertyAdmittingHuman ProgressEquitablePolitical Economy
Author:Joshua K. Ingalls
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“People fear leaving their safe harbor of the known and venturing off into the unknown. Human beings crave certainty - even when it limits them.”

PeopleHumansHuman BeingsKnownSafeLimitsLeavingCertaintyCraveHarborsSafe Harbor
Book:The Greatness Guide: One of the World's Most Successful Coaches Shares His Secrets for Personal and Business Mastery
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“The inspiration of a noble cause involving human interests wide and far, enables men to do things they did not dream themselves capable of before, and which they were not capable of alone. The consciousness of belonging, vitally, to something beyond individuality; of being part of a personality that reaches we know not where, in space and time, greatens the heart to the limit of the souls ideal, and builds out the supreme character.”

KnowsMenLifeGivingHumansHeartSoulCharacterDreamInspirationMotivationalPurposeCausesInterestCommunitySpaceConsciousnessPersonalityLimitsCapableIdealsIndividualityWideNobleSupremeFulfillmentMeaning Of LifeBelongingTime And SpaceGiving BackInvolvingInterdependenceLife MeansNoble Causes
Author:Joshua Chamberlain
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