“Humans, the only self-regarding animals, blessed or cursed with this torturing higher faculty, have always wanted to know why.”

Writing and Being (1991)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Humans, the only self-regarding animals, blessed or cursed with this torturing higher faculty, have always wanted to kn…" by Nadine Gordimer?
Nadine Gordimer photo
Nadine Gordimer 57
South african Nobel-winning writer 1923–2014

Related quotes

Max Lucado photo

“No one knows if it is a blessing or a curse. No one is wise enough to know. Only God knows.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

"The Old Man and the White Horse"
In the Eye of the Storm (1991)
Context: It is impossible to talk with you. You always draw conclusions. No one knows. Say only this. Your sons had to go to war, and mine did not. No one knows if it is a blessing or a curse. No one is wise enough to know. Only God knows.

Marcus Orelias photo

“Knowing’s a blessing, relaying it is the curse.”

Marcus Orelias (1993) American actor, rapper, songwriter, author and entrepreneur

Book VII
Rebel of the Underground (2013)

Max Lucado photo
Daniela Sea photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“There is scarcely anything more tragic in human life than a child who is not wanted. That which should be a blessing becomes a curse for parent and child.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Family Planning - A Special and Urgent Concern (1966)
Context: The Negro constitutes half the poor of the nation. Like all poor, Negro and white, they have many unwanted children. This is a cruel evil they urgently need to control. There is scarcely anything more tragic in human life than a child who is not wanted. That which should be a blessing becomes a curse for parent and child. There is nothing inherent in the Negro mentality which creates this condition. Their poverty causes it. When Negroes have been able to ascend economically, statistics reveal they plan their families with even greater care than whites. Negroes of higher economic and educational status actually have fewer children than white families in the same circumstances.

Max Barry photo

“But it's our curse and our blessing to remember the past and to know there's a future.

—Charlie”

Susan Beth Pfeffer (1948) American writer

Source: This World We Live In

Stephen Stich photo

“In light of the evolutionary links and behavioural similarities between humans and higher animals, it is hard to believe that belief-desire psychology could explain human behaviour, but not animal behaviour. If humans have beliefs, so do animals.”

Stephen Stich (1943) American philosopher

"Do Animals Have Beliefs?" (1979); as quoted in The Case for Animal Rights by Tom Regan (University of California Press, 2004), p. 36 https://books.google.it/books?id=Y0tWjRmxFE4C&pg=PA36.

Immanuel Kant photo

Related topics