Quotes on Menschlichkeit

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Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.
 
Man is the only animal that is to be dreaded.
 
Men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all the other alternatives.
 
When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bustling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.
 
I say that the world is a league of scoundrels against the men of good will, and of the petty against the generous.
 
Talking nonsense is man's only privilege that distinguishes him from all other organisms.
 
Man's role is uncertain, undefined, and perhaps unnecessary.
 
Man is an intelligence in servitude to his organs.
 
We will leave this world stupid and evil as we have found it upon our arrival.
 
Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake. 
 
When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.
 
Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important.
 
We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves to be like other people.
 
THE BULLSHIT ASYMMETRY
"The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it." (Alberto Brandolini)
 
The important fact of the present time is not the struggle between capitalism and socialism but the struggle between industrial civilization and humanity.
 
Man is a mystery: if you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, then do not say that you have wasted your time. I occupy myself with this mystery, because I want to be a man.
 
To me, Mother Nature isn't nearly as scary as human nature.
 
Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage.
 
Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity.
 
Man (like the other animals) is not born to enjoy life, but only to perpetuate life, to communicate it to others who come after, to conserve it. Neither he himself, nor life, nor any object of this world is actually made for him, but, on the contrary, he exists completely for life. Terrifying, but a true proposition of all metaphysics.
 
Invention, using the term most broadly, and imitation, are the two legs, so to call them, on which the human race historically has walked.
 
Maybe this world is another planet’s hell.
 
The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.
 
23 quotes