“Nature's prime favourites were the Pelicans;
High-fed, long-lived, and sociable and free.”
James Montgomery (1771–1854) British editor, hymn writer, and poet
Canto V, line 144.
The Pelican Island (1827)
“Sociability is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle.”
"Mutual Aid as a Factor in Evolution" as quoted in The Cry for Justice : An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest (1915) by Upton Sinclair
Context: A soon as we study animals — not in laboratories and museums only, but in the forest and prairie, in the steppe and in the mountains — we at once perceive that though there is an immense amount of warfare and extermination going on amidst various species, and especially amidst various classes of animals, there is, at the same time, as much, or perhaps even more, of mutual support, mutual aid, and mutual defence amidst animals belonging to the same species or, at least, to the same society. Sociability is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle. Of course it would be extremely difficult to estimate, however roughly, the relative numerical importance of both these series of facts. But if we resort to an indirect test, and ask Nature: "Who are the fittest: those who are continually at war with each other, or those who support one another?" we at once see that those animals which acquire habits of mutual aid are undoubtedly the fittest. They have more chances to survive, and they attain, in their respective classes, the highest development and bodily organization. If the numberless facts which can be brought forward to support this view are taken into account, we may safely say that mutual aid is as much a law of animal life as mutual struggle; but that as a factor of evolution, it most probably has a far greater importance, inasmuch as it favors the development of such habits and characters as insure the maintenance and further development of the species, together with the greatest amount of welfare and enjoyment of life for the individual, with the least waste of energy.
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Peter Kropotkin141
Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scie… 1842–1921Related quotes
Peter Kropotkin book Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution
Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902)
Context: As to the sudden industrial progress which has been achieved during our own century, and which is usually ascribed to the triumph of individualism and competition, it certainly has a much deeper origin than that. Once the great discoveries of the fifteenth century were made, especially that of the pressure of the atmosphere, supported by a series of advances in natural philosophy — and they were made under the medieval city organization, — once these discoveries were made, the invention of the steam-motor, and all the revolution which the conquest of a new power implied, had necessarily to follow... To attribute, therefore, the industrial progress of our century to the war of each against all which it has proclaimed, is to reason like the man who, knowing not the causes of rain, attributes it to the victim he has immolated before his clay idol. For industrial progress, as for each other conquest over nature, mutual aid and close intercourse certainly are, as they have been, much more advantageous than mutual struggle.
Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and member of the French assembly
Justice and fraternity, in Journal des Économistes, 15 June 1848, page 324.
Justice and Fraternity (1848)
Ervin László (1932) Hungarian musician and philosopher
Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Ervin László (1972) The Relevance of general systems theory: papers presented to Ludwig von Bertalanffy on his seventieth birthday. p. 185.
Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People
Original: (zh-CN) 马克思主义的哲学认为，对立统一规律是宇宙的根本规律。这个规律，不论在自然界、人类社会和人们的思想中，都是普遍存在的。矛盾着的对立面又统一，又斗争，由此推动事物的运动和变化。矛盾是普遍存在的，不过按事物的性质不同，矛盾的性质也就不同。对于任何一个具体的事物说来，对立的统一是有条件的、暂时的、过渡的，因而是相对的，对立的斗争则是绝对的。
Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer
Source: Fallen Leaves (2014), Ch. 2 : On Youth
Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author
Of The Exaltation of Charity
Meditationes sacræ (1597)
“It is difficult to struggle with the common law.”
Edward Law, 1st Baron Ellenborough (1750–1818) Lord Chief Justice of England
Kerr v. Willan (1817), 2 Starkie, 54.
John Mortimer (1923–2009) English barrister, dramatist, screenwriter and author
Source: Where There's a Will: Thoughts on the Good Life (2003), Ch. 20 : Law or Justice
Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
" VIII. ON "LET A HUNDRED FLOWERS BLOSSOM LET A HUNDRED SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT CONTEND" AND "LONG-TERM COEXISTENCE AND MUTUAL SUPERVISION" "
On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People