“As a species we're fundamentally insane. Put more than two of us in a room, we pick sides and start dreaming up reasons to kill one another. Why do you think we invented politics and religion?”

—  Stephen King

Last update Sept. 24, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "As a species we're fundamentally insane. Put more than two of us in a room, we pick sides and start dreaming up reasons…" by Stephen King?
Stephen King photo
Stephen King733
American author 1947

Related quotes

Stephen Chbosky photo

“Why do I and everyone I love pick people who treat us like we're nothing"; - "We accept the love we think we deserve”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Arlo Guthrie photo

“We came to a side road, and off the side of the side road there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the cliff there was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pile is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we decided to throw ours down.”

Arlo Guthrie (1947) American folk singer

Alice's Restaurant Massacree

Fernando Pessoa photo

“We all have two lives: The true, the one we dreamed of in childhood And go on dreaming of as adults in a substratum of mist; the false, the one we love when we live with others, the practical, the useful, the one we end up by being put in a coffin.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Clive Staples Lewis photo

“He [God] lends us a little of His reasoning powers and that is how we think: He puts a little of His love into us and that is how we love one another.”

Clive Staples Lewis book Mere Christianity

Book II, Chapter 4, "The Perfect Penitent"
Mere Christianity (1952)
Context: He [God] lends us a little of His reasoning powers and that is how we think: He puts a little of His love into us and that is how we love one another. When you teach a child writing, you hold its hand while it forms the letters: that is, it forms the letters because you are forming them. We love and reason because God loves and reasons and holds our hand while we do it.

Bertrand Russell photo

“We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side; one which we preach but do not practise, and another which we practise but seldom preach.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1920s, Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 8: Eastern and Western Ideals of Happiness

Alastair Reynolds photo

“Don’t you start. It’s bad enough that one of us feels he could have done more. We’re human, Campion—that’s all it boils down to. Human and not nearly as clever as we thought we were when it counted. End of story. When they put up the gravestone for our species, that’ll be the epitaph.”

Alastair Reynolds book House of Suns

Source: House of Suns (2008), Chapter 39 (p. 509)

“To put it another way, pain is God's megaphone to rouse a deaf world. Why must it be pain? Why can't he rouse us more gently, with violins or laughter? Because the dream from which we must be wakened, is the dream that all is well.”

William Nicholson movie Shadowlands

Source: Shadowlands

Derren Brown photo

“What makes us dream of some things and not others? Why might we pick up on a trivial event from the day and not something more important? Would it be possible to have someone dream of specific subjects by subtly suggesting those ideas?”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Trick of the Mind (2004–2006)

Michael Savage photo

“Isn't a religion supposed to be like red and green lights, for people? I mean we're going to do what we want anyway, most of us. But at least you go and you feel bad for what you did… Now what? Now we can do anything, so why go to church at all? That's why Reform Judaism is dead; it doesn't stand for anything. There's got to be more to religion than coffee cake. Or let's say, yogurt and fruit now…”

Michael Savage book The Savage Nation

The Savage Nation
The Savage Nation (1995- ), 2015-09-09
Radio, 1:23:12
2015

Karl Marlantes photo

“One of the things that I learned in the war is that we're not the top species on the planet because we're nice.  We are a very aggressive species; it is in us.  People talk a lot about how well the military turns kids into killing machines, and I'll always argue that it's just finishing school.  What we do with civilization is that we learn to inhibit and rope in these aggressive tendencies, and we have to recognize them. I worry about a whole country that doesn't recognize them, because think of how many times we get ourselves into scrapes as a nation because we're always the 'good guys.”

Karl Marlantes (1944) Businessman, novelist

Sometimes, I think if we thought we weren't always the good guys, we might actually get into less wars.
The Vietnam War (2017), episode 5, documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick

Related topics