“Anyone who truly wants to escape human solipsism should not seek out empty places. Instead of fleeing to the desert, where they will be thrown back into their own thoughts, they will do better to seek the company of other animals. A zoo is a better window from which to look out of the human world than a monastery.”

— John Gray, book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

The Unsaved: The Mirror of Solitude (p. 150-1)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

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British philosopher 1948

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

Source: Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast

“He knew, better than the cynic, that if you look out over the arc of history, human beings should be filled not with fear but with hope.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Remarks by President Obama at Memorial Service for Former Israeli President Shimon Peres on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, Israel. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/09/30/remarks-president-obama-memorial-service-former-israeli-president-shimon (30 September 2016) <br class="br">2016

“Those chimps and orangutans [in our music video] get treated better than the ones in zoos. They’re loved, and they’re taken care of much better and cleaned much better. And they’re only allowed to work a certain amount of time every day. Plus, we had someone from Animal Protection there the entire time, making sure everything was cool. It’s really weird that people got pissed off about that. Those animals were treated quite well, probably better than most humans, and definitely better than animals in the zoo.”

Joe Trohman (1984) American musician

My Heart Will Always Be The B-Side To My Tongue (2004), Ultimate Guitar Interview (2008)

“All the human and animal manure which the world wastes, if returned to the land, instead of being thrown into the sea, would suffice to nourish the world.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

“The point that I made in the article is that if any of us lapse sometimes from standards that we uphold, that is human. The thing to do is not necessarily then to say that the standards should be lowered. It should be to reflect on the lapse and to seek to do better in the future.”

Michael Gove (1967) British politician

Michael Gove admits he was lucky to avoid jail over cocaine use https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48572982, BBC News, 9 June 2019 <br class="br">2019

“Big money seeks out the company of its own, for purposes of reproduction.”

Joe Haldeman (1943) American science fiction writer

Source: For White Hill (1995), p. 225

“Much more naturally than you do: because flight is a much more natural consequence of fear than of hate. He doesn't flee men because he hates them, but because he is afraid of them. He doesn't flee them in order to harm them, but to try o escape the harm they wish to do to him. They, on the contrary, don't seek him through friendship, but through hate. They seek him and he flees from them just as in the wilderness of Africa, where there are few men and many tigers, the men flee the tigers, the men flee the tigers, and the tigers seek the men.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Second Dialogue; translated by Judith R. Bush, Christopher Kelly, Roger D. Masters
Dialogues: Rousseau Judge of Jean-Jacques (published 1782)

“I think the world would be a better place if we took a page out of how people treat each other at anime cons.”

Eric Stuart (1967) American voice actor, voice director, singer, songwriter, and guitarist

Source: Interview with Eric Stuart, voice actor for Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! https://jotaku.net/2020/07/14/interview-with-eric-stuart-voice-actor-for-pokemon-and-yu-gi-oh/ (July 14, 2020)

“Already, he was dreaming of a refined solitude, a comfortable desert, a motionless ark in which to seek refuge from the unending deluge of human stupidity.”

Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848–1907) French novelist and art critic

Source: Against Nature

“There are lots of guys out there who write a better prose line than I do and who have a better understanding of what people are really like and what humanity is supposed to mean – hell, I know that.”

Stephen King book Misery

Source: Misery

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