“All we know of the truth is that the absolute truth, such as it is, is beyond our reach.”
Nicholas of Cusa book De Docta Ignorantia
De Docta Ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance) (1440)
“Maybe altruism is our most primitive attribute out of reach, beyond our control.”
"The Tucson Zoo", p. 10
The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher (1979)
Context: Maybe altruism is our most primitive attribute out of reach, beyond our control. Or perhaps it is immediately at hand, waiting to be released, disguised now, in our kind of civilization as affection or friendship or attachment. I can’t see why it should be unreasonable for all human beings to have strands of DNA coiled up in chromosomes, coding out instincts for usefulness and helpfulness. Usefulness may turn out to be the hardest test of fitness for survival, more important than aggression, more effective, in the long run, than grabbiness.
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Lewis Thomas31
American physician, poet and educator 1913–1993Related quotes
Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland
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Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer
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Walter Raymond Spalding (1865–1962) American music pedagogue and author
On instrumental music, page 2 https://books.google.com/books?id=pQARAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA2. <br class="br">Music: An Art and a Language (1920), Preliminary Considerations (Ch. I)
Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist
Source: Science and the Unseen World (1929), Ch. IV, p.42-43
Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister
1920s
Source: Nationalsozialismus oder Bolschewismus? (National Socialism or Bolshevism), open letter to “My Friends on the Left,” Nationalsozialistische Briefe (National Socialist Letters), (Oct. 15, 1925); Joseph Gobbles, Quoted in The Devil’s Disciples, Anthony Read, W. W. Norton & Company, 2005, p. 142
“Here we are reaching out for aliens
Looking for our salvation.
Pity our emptiness
Save our souls.”
Happy Rhodes (1965) American singer-songwriter
"Save Our Souls" - Live performance at The Tin Angel, Philadelphia, PA (15 March 1997) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPJ2HRgtquo <br class="br">Equipoise (1993) <br class="br">Context: We are the number one offender<br>Of specieism and yet<br>Here we are reaching out for aliens<br>Looking for our salvation.<br>Pity our emptiness<br>Save our souls.
