Quotes About Humanity

What are the lessons to be learned from this journey of the mind? That humans are emotionally fragile, perennially gullible, hopelessly ignorant masters of an insignificantly small speck in the cosmos. Have a nice day.

Humans aren't as good as we should be in our capacity to empathize with feelings and thoughts of others, be they humans or other animals on Earth. So maybe part of our formal education should be training in empathy. Imagine how different the world would be if, in fact, that were 'reading, writing, arithmetic, empathy.

I look forward to the day when the solar system becomes our collective backyard—explored not only with robots, but with the mind, body, and soul of our species.

If humans one day become extinct from a catastrophic collision, there would be no greater tragedy in the history of life in the universe. Not because we lacked the brain power to protect ourselves but because we lacked the foresight.

However, every advance in our knowledge of the cosmos has revealed that we live on a cosmic speck of dust, orbiting a mediocre star in the far suburbs of a common sort of galaxy, among a hundred billion galaxies in the universe. The news of our cosmic unimportance triggers impressive defense mechanisms in the human psyche.

The day our knowledge of the cosmos ceases to expand, we risk regressing to the childish view that the universe figuratively and literally revolves around us. In that bleak world, arms-bearing, resource-hungry people and nations would be prone to act on their "low contracted prejudices." And that would be the last gasp of human enlightenment—until the rise of a visionary new culture that could once again embrace, rather than fear, the cosmic perspective.

Even if you're bad at math, you're probably much better at it than the smartest chimpanzee, whose genetic identity varies in only trifling ways from ours.

Human nature scares the hell out of me.

some of the water you just drank passed through the kidneys of Socrates, Genghis Khan, and Joan of Arc. How

That means some of the air you just breathed passed through the lungs of Napoleon, Beethoven, Lincoln, and Billy the Kid.

No way around it: some of the water you just drank passed through the kidneys of Socrates, Genghis Khan, and Joan of Arc. How about air? Also vital. A single breathful draws in more air molecules than there are breathfuls of air in Earth's entire atmosphere. That means some of the air you just breathed passed through the lungs of Napoleon, Beethoven, Lincoln, and Billy the Kid.

I beseech you to treasure up in your hearts these my parting words. Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.

single breathful draws in more air molecules than there are breathfuls of air in Earth's entire atmosphere. That means some of the air you just breathed passed through the lungs of Napoleon, Beethoven, Lincoln

I claim no special knowledge of when the end of science will come, or where the end might be found, or whether an end exists at all. What I do know is that our species is dumber than we normally admit to ourselves.

When I pore over the data that establish the mysterious prescence of dark matter and dark energy throughout the universe, sometimes I forget that every day- every twenty a fourth out rotation on Earth- people get killed in the name of someone else's conception of God, and that some people who do not kill in the name of God, kill in the name of needs or wants of political dogma.

Seems the World goes batshit crazy, every few decades. Just long enough to forget the last time the World went batshit crazy.

Some of the water you just drank passed through the kidneys of Socrates, Genghis Khan, and Joan of Arc. Some of the air you just breathed passed through the lungs of Napoleon, Beethoven, Lincoln, and Billy the Kid.

The cosmic perspective opens our eyes to the universe, not as a benevolent cradle designed to nurture life but as a cold, lonely, hazardous place, forcing us to reassess the value of all humans to one another.

Even when arguing opinions, you may be surprised how potent a rational perspective can be. When illuminated by it, you fast discover that Earth supports not many tribes, but only one—the human tribe. That's when many disagreements soften, while others simply evaporate, leaving you with nothing to argue about in the first place.

A perspectiva cósmica abre nossos olhos para o universo, não como um berço benevolente concebido para gerar a vida, mas como um lugar frio, solitário e perigoso, nos obrigando a reavaliar o valor de todos os humanos um para o outro.

If we instead back away from all that divides us, you might find common, unifying perspectives on the world. If so, watch where you step.

But we take better care of our cats and dogs than we do of homeless humans in the street. If we serve as pets to aliens, might they take better care of us than we ever will of ourselves?

you take a swig of water…It contains water molecules that have passed through the kidneys of Abraham Lincoln, of Genghis Khan, of Jesus…

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