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Modern Quotes

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Modern Quotes

“Liberalism, contrary to popular belief, is facing backward in considering the injustice of its ancestors. Conservatism, contrary to popular belief, is facing forward in considering the psychology of its descendants. Definitively, it seems in the modern world that neither side really knows which direction it's facing, and men of the sharpest judgment are simply turned off from picking either of the poisons.”

“Blind impatience is equally evident in the fruit section. Our ancestors might have delighted in the occasional handful of berries found on the underside of a bush in late summer, viewing it as a sign of the unexpected munificence of a divine creator, but we became modern when we gave up on awaiting sporadic gifts from above and sought to render any pleasing sensation immediately and repeatedly available.”

Source: The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work

“The point is that for our ancestors, the universe was a picture; for modern physics it is a story.”

Stories Universe Modern Physics Ancestor Modern Physics

Book:God in the Dock

Source: God in the Dock

“The entire hominid collection known today would barely cover a billiard table, ... the collection is so tantalizingly incomplete, and the specimens themselves often so fragmented and inconclusive, that more can be said about what is missing than about what is present. ...but ever since Darwin's work inspired the notion that fossils linking modern man and extinct ancestor would provide the most convincing proof of human evolution, preconceptions have led evidence by the nose in the study of fossil man.”

“The equilibrium you admire in me is an unstable one, difficult to maintain. My inner life was split early between the call of the Ancestors and the call of Europe, between the exigencies of black-African culture and those of modern life.”

Culture Difficult Black Modern Europe Admire Ancestor Splits Modern Life Inner Life Equilibrium Unstable African Culture

Author:Leopold Sedar Senghor

“We must wake up to the insane reality of our time. We are all irresponsible, unless we demand from the responsible decision makers that modern armaments must no longer be made available to people whose former battle axes and swords our ancestors condemned.”

People Made Reality Decision Modern Battle Demand Wake Up Responsible Available Insane Former Our Time Makers Ancestor Irresponsible Axes Armament Decision Makers

Author:Thor Heyerdahl

“A lot of indigenous cultures are deeply involved in working with ancestor spirits, elemental spirits, and demons. Many of these cultures feel that, if you don't deal properly with ancestor spirits, then they come back and infest the living in the form of things like depression, addictive patterns, and neuroses. We in the modern West completely deny the existence of these spirits or other types of entities. And because we've denied them, we may have opened the gates for them to manipulate us in a lot of ways.”

Ifs Way Feels May Form Spirit Culture Deals Existence Modern Type Involved West Patterns Deny Demon Gates Denied Ancestor Entity Manipulate Indigenous Neurosis Elementals Indigenous Culture

Author:Daniel Pinchbeck

“Your ancestors dragged these black people from their homes by force; and in the white man's quest for wealth and an easy life they have been ruthlessly suppressed and exploited, degraded into slavery. The modern prejudice against Negroes is the result of the desire to maintain this unworthy condition.”

Source: Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words

“Modern war is so expensive that we feel trade to be a better avenue to plunder; but modern man inherits all the innate pugnacity and all the love of glory of his ancestors.”

Men Feels War Modern Glory Trade Expensive Ancestor Innate Avenues Modern Man Plunder Modern War

Book:William James: Essays and Lectures

Source: William James: Essays and Lectures

“I had ancestors who were slave-holders, which is a difficult piece of family history to say the least. In a recent New York Times article on the subject of modern attitudes toward our slave-holding past, the writer noted that we all want to be from "innocent origins." I _know_ I'm not. Then again, I suspect most of us are not.”

Want Past Difficult Attitude Pieces Modern Subjects New York Slave Innocent Suspects Articles Ancestor New York Times Family History

Author:Laura Lippman