Louis Auguste Blanqui (1805–1881) French socialist and political activist
in "August Blanqui, Heretical Communist," Radical Philosophy 185 (2014)
Source: Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), p. 306
Louis Auguste Blanqui (1805–1881) French socialist and political activist
in "August Blanqui, Heretical Communist," Radical Philosophy 185 (2014)
“Phenomena appear, in a word, to be explicable on the ground of development.”
Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
We have already seen that various leading animal forms represent stages in the embryotic progress of the highest—the human being. Our brain goes through the various stages of a fish's, a reptile's, and a mammifer's brain, and finally becomes human.
Source: Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), p. 306
John Brunner The Shockwave Rider
Bk. 1, Ch. "The Number You Have Reached"
The Shockwave Rider (1975)
Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author
Source: River out of Eden (1995), Ch. 5: The Replication Bomb
Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) American birth control activist, educator and nurse
Source: What Every Girl Should Know (1913), Chapter 4, "Sexual Impulses--Part II", p. 47.
Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)
1920s, Ways to Peace (1926)
Context: Our experience in that respect ought not to lead us too hastily to assume that we have been therefore better than other people, but certainly we have been more fortunate. We came on the stage at a later time, so that this country had presented to it, already attained, a civilization that other countries had secured only as a result of a long and painful struggle. Of the various races of which we are composed, substantially all have a history for making warfare which is oftentimes hard to justify, as they have come up through various degrees of development. They bore this burden in ages past in order that this country might be freed from it. Under the circumstances it behooves us to look on their record of advance through great difficulties with much compassion and be thankful that we have been spared from a like experience, and out of our compassion and our thankfulness constantly to remember that because of greater advantages and opportunities we are charged with superior duties and obligations. Perhaps no country on earth has greater responsibilities than America.
“I'm the empty stage where various actors act out various plays.”
Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet
Source: The Book of Disquiet
Ken Wilber (1949) American writer and public speaker
Which Level of God Do You Believe In? (2004)
Context: Human beings undergo psychological development. At each level or stage of development, they will see the world in a different way. Hence, each level of development has, as it were, a different religious belief or worldview. This does not make God or Spirit the result of human development; it does, however, make the ways in which humans conceive of God or Spirit the result of development. And this is where it gets really interesting.
Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
Source: Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), p. 197
Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
"Rectify the Party's Style of Work" (1942)