“The whole presents nothing but the idea of a blind Nature, impregnated by a great vivifying principle, and pouring forth from her lap, without discernment or parental care, her maimed and abortive children!”

— David Hume, book Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Philo to Cleanthes, Part XI
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779)
Context: Look round this universe. What an immense profusion of beings, animated and organised, sensible and active! You admire this prodigious variety and fecundity. But inspect a little more narrowly these living existences, the only beings worth regarding. How hostile and destructive to each other! How insufficient all of them for their own happiness! How contemptible or odious to the spectator! The whole presents nothing but the idea of a blind Nature, impregnated by a great vivifying principle, and pouring forth from her lap, without discernment or parental care, her maimed and abortive children!

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David Hume138

Scottish philosopher, economist, and historian 1711–1776

Christopher Wood (writer) (1935–2015) English writer

Wood, Christopher. "Terrible Hard", Says Alice. London: Constable. 1970. (chapter 9)

“Nature made us men, and she surrenders not her children without a struggle.”

James Anthony Froude book The Nemesis of Faith

Confessions Of A Sceptic
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
Context: Once in our lives we have all to choose. More or less we have all felt once the same emotions. We have not always been what the professions make of us. Nature made us men, and she surrenders not her children without a struggle. I will go back to my story now with but this one word, that it is these sons of genius, and the fate they meet with, which is to me the one sole evidence that there is more in "this huge state" than what is seen, and that in very truth the soul of man is not a thing which comes and goes, is builded and decays like the elemental frame in which it is set to dwell, but a very living force, a very energy of God's organic Will, which rules and moulds this universe.
For what are they? Say not, say not, it is but a choice which they have made; and an immortality of glory in heaven shall reward them for what they have sacrificed on earth. It may be so; but they do not ask for it. They are what they are from the Divine power which is in them, and you would never hear their complainings if the grave was the gate of annihilation.

“The whole idea of science is really to listen to nature, in her own language, as part of a continuing dialogue.”

Frank Wilczek (1951) physicist

Source: Longing for the Harmonies: Themes and Variations from Modern Physics (1987), Ch.32 Hidden Harmonies

“Tradionally, parents made decisions for a child, because presumably they are looking out for his or her best interests. But if they are blinded, instead, by the best interests of another one of their children, the system breaks down.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

“But what happens when her beauty is torn from her like a cover from a book? Will he care to read her then, although her pages speak of nothing but love for him?”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

“A bride-to-be, Discreet and penitent, she presents herself to her parents in this guise.”

Francisco De Goya (1746–1828) Spanish painter and printmaker (1746–1828)

Caption, in the so-called Madrid Album 90: sketch-book of Goya, 1796-97; as quoted by Robert Hughes, in: Goya. Borzoi Book - Alfred Knopf, New York, 2003, p. 173-74
caption below a drawing, in brush and India ink – private collection
1790s
Original: Nobia, Discreta y arrenpentida a sus padres se presenta en esta forma.

“Without hesitation, she made a fist and hit herself in the right eye, her knuckles making contact with the top of her cheekbone. And then she poured milk into her coffee.”

Lis Wiehl (1961) American legal scholar

Source: Heart of Ice A Triple Threat Novel with April Henry (Thomas Nelson), p. 201