“That's been a question, one of the big questions in my life. 'What is a human?' What are the elements that make a human?' It's a search for… how many elements do you get before you say, "Yes, it's human," where before you were saying it's not human.”

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "That's been a question, one of the big questions in my life. 'What is a human?' What are the elements that make a human…" by Gene Roddenberry?
Gene Roddenberry photo
Gene Roddenberry 27
American television screenwriter and producer 1921–1991

Related quotes

Ronald Reagan photo

“The real question today is not when human life begins, but, What is the value of human life?”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation (1983)

Alesha Dixon photo

“By the way, dancers are not human beings. How can you be human and do what they do?”

Alesha Dixon (1978) English singer, dancer, rapper, model and television presenter

Alesha Dixon cited in Dixon tipped for Strictly success http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7156420.stm at bbc.co.uk, 22 December, 2007: Referring bookmakers favourite to win BBC One's ballroom show Strictly Come Dancing.

Marcus Tullius Cicero photo

“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?”
Nescire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum. Quid enim est aetas hominis, nisi ea memoria rerum veterum cum superiorum aetate contexitur? ([http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/cicero/orator.shtml#120 120])

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Variant translation: To be ignorant of the past is to be forever a child.
Chapter XXXIV, section 120
Orator Ad M. Brutum (46 BC)
Variant: Not to know what happened before you were born is to be a child forever. For what is the time of a man, except it be interwoven with that memory of ancient things of a superior age?

Hermann Hesse photo

“Do you know what humanity is, what the word "human" means? The word human”

Barry Long (1926–2003) Australian spiritual teacher and writer

Love is not a feeling ~ The Interview (1995)
Context: Do you know what humanity is, what the word "human" means? The word human where I come from - which is the enlightened state - means suffering. So when you say you're a human being, you're saying you're a suffering being. And I say you have to get rid of your suffering and then be being. Enlightenment is the state of being which I am, this moment and every moment. So I'm not suffering. But humanity loves to suffer. People love to suffer because they love to get excited with their feelings. All you've got to do is get rid of your feelings, which are always negative. Why not get rid of the whole lot of it, now? That means you don't know feelings and then you don't know negativity, and then you'd be in love, and then you would love everybody by not loving anybody in particular as a feeling. That's the state of enlightenment.

C. Wright Mills photo
Georges Bataille photo
Kate DiCamillo photo
Octavia E. Butler photo

Related topics