The Careful Use of Compliments, chapter 8.
The Sunday Philosophy Club series
“Surely mankind has yet to be born. Surely this is true!”
Part II : Old Times Past : Voices, Dreams, Recollections
The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967)
Context: “Surely mankind has yet to be born. Surely this is true! For only something blind and uncomprehending could exist in such a mean conjunction with its own flesh, its own kind. How else account for such faltering, clumsy, hateful cruelty? Even the possums and the skunks know better! Even the weasels and the meadow mice have a natural regard for their own blood and kin. Only the insects are low enough to do the low things that people do — like those ants that swarm on poplars in the summertime, greedily husbanding little green aphids for the honeydew they secrete. Yes, it could be that mankind has yet to be born. Ah, what bitter tears God must weep at the sight of the things that men do to other men!” He broke off then and I saw him shake his head convulsively, his voice a sudden cry: “In the name of money! Money! ”
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William Styron 36
American novelist and essayist 1925–2006Related quotes
“If you look for the bad in mankind expecting to find it, you surely will.”
Abraham Lincoln
(1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
This is attributed to Lincoln in the 1960 film adaptation of Pollyanna. In reality, it was fabricated by screenwriter and director David Swift, who had to have thousands of lockets bearing the false inscription recalled after Disney began selling them at Disneyland.
Misattributed
“Trivia and pettiness consume mankind, surely the most pretentious creation of all.”
Ian Brady
(1938–2017) British serial killer, perpetrator of the Moors murders
As quoted by Jean Rafferty in "My friend Ian Brady" http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/crime-courts/my-friend-ian-brady.18076533, Scotland Herald (8 July 2012)
Source: The Path of the King (1921), Ch. V "The Maid"
Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 6
“Today the dreams of the best sons of mankind have come true. The assault on space has begun.”
Sergei Korolev
(1906–1966) Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer
As quoted in 1957, Red Star in Orbit by James Oberg (1981)
Thomas Carlyle
(1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher
1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), The Present Time (February 1, 1850)
“CHRISTMAS IS WAITING TO BE BORN:
In you, in me, in all mankind.”
Howard Thurman
(1899–1981) American writer
"Christmas Is Waiting to be Born" in The Mood of Christmas & Other Celebrations (1985)
Context: Where refugees seek deliverance that never comes
And the heart consumes itself as if it would live,
Where children age before their time
And life wears down the edges of the mind,
Where the old man sits with mind grown cold,
While bones and sinew, blood and cell, go slowly down to death,
Where fear companions each day's life,
And Perfect Love seems long delayed.
CHRISTMAS IS WAITING TO BE BORN:
In you, in me, in all mankind.