Quotes About Humans

I have a deep respect and love for these tiny humans, and I hope to convey in my images a measure of the beauty that exists in all children.

I'm always in awe of and respect humans for their ability to plan, but sometimes, good intentions are lost along the way. And often the way becomes the goal.

Most fairy tales are warnings against human pride and cruelty. Purity always has its opposite…if humans had no impurities, they could never be considered pure. It's like you and me.

You want to know how super-intelligent cyborgs might treat ordinary flesh-and-blood humans? Better start by investigating how humans treat their less intelligent animal cousins. It's not a perfect analogy, of course, but it is the best archetype we can actually observe rather than just imagine.

The fundamental insight of polytheism, which distinguishes it from monotheism, is that the supreme power governing the world is devoid of interests and biases, and therefore it is unconcerned with the mundane desires, cares and worries of humans.

We cannot explain the choices that history makes, but we can say something very important about them: history's choices are not made for the benefit of humans.

No investigation of our divine future can ignore our own animal past, or our relations with other animals – because the relationship between humans and animals is the best model we have for future relations between superhumans and humans. You

Humans are in danger of losing their economic value because intelligence is decoupling from consciousness.

Were the Australian extinction an isolated event, we could grant humans the benefit of the doubt. But the historical record makes Homo sapiens look like an ecological serial killer.

Three important revolutions shaped the course of history: the Cognitive Revolution kick-started history about 70,000 years ago. The Agricultural Revolution sped it up about 12,000 years ago. The Scientific Revolution, which got under way only 500 years ago, may well end history and start something completely different. This book tells the story of how these three revolutions have affected humans and their fellow organisms.

As a species, humans prefer power to truth. We spend far more time and effort on trying to control the world than on trying to understand it—and even when we try to understand it, we usually do so in the hope that understanding the world will make it easier to control it.

The big question facing humans isn't "what is the meaning of life?" but rather "how do we stop suffering?

Notwithstanding the danger of mass unemployment, what we should worry about even more is the shift in authority from humans to algorithms, which might destroy any remaining faith in the liberal story and open the way to the rise of digital dictatorships.

If you believe in an absolute truth revealed by a transcendent power, you cannot allow yourself to admit any error, for that would nullify your whole story. But if you believe in a quest for truth by fallible humans, admitting blunders is part of the game.

History began when humans invented gods, and will end when humans become gods…

But the most important information that needed to be conveyed was about humans, not about lions and bison. Our language evolved as a way of gossiping.

b × c × d = ahh! Biological knowledge multiplied by Computing power multiplied by Data equals Ability to Hack Humans.

Yet once biologists concluded that organisms are algorithms, they dismantled the wall between the organic and the inorganic, turned the computer revolution from a purely mechanical affair into a biological cataclysm, and shifted authority from individual humans to networked algorithms.

The Scientific Revolution has not been a revolution of knowledge. It has been above all a revolution of ignorance. The great discovery that launched the Scientific Revolution was the discovery that humans do not know the answers to their most important questions. Premodern

Creating new human jobs might prove easier than retraining humans to actually fill these jobs.

The modern deal thus offers humans an enormous temptation, coupled with a colossal threat. Omnipotence is in front of us, almost within our reach, but below us yawns the abyss of complete nothingness.

Most of what they currently learn at school will probably be irrelevant by the time they are forty. Traditionally, life has been divided into two main parts: a period of learning followed by a period of working. Very soon this traditional model will become utterly obsolete, and the only way for humans to stay in the game will be to keep learning throughout their lives, and to reinvent themselves repeatedly. Many if not most humans may be unable to do so.

The shifting of authority from humans to algorithms is happening all around us, not as a result of some momentous governmental decision, but due to a flood of mundane personal choices.

The most important thing to know about prehistoric humans is that they were insignificant animals with no more impact on their environment than gorillas, fireflies or jellyfish.