“All the history of human life has been a struggle between wisdom and stupidity.”

Source: The Amber Spyglass

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "All the history of human life has been a struggle between wisdom and stupidity." by Philip Pullman?
Philip Pullman photo
Philip Pullman 161
English author 1946

Related quotes

Philip Pullman photo
Christopher Hitchens photo
Felix Frankfurter photo

“The eternal struggle in the law between constancy and change is largely a struggle between history and reason, between past reason and present needs.”

Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) American judge

Twenty Years of Mr. Justice Holmes' Constitutional Opinions, 36 HARV. L. REV. 909, 931 (1923).
Other writings

Michel De Montaigne photo

“Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centre of sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human accidents.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Source: The Complete Essays

P. J. O'Rourke photo

“Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history mankind has been bullied by scum.”

Parliament of Whores (1991)
Context: Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history mankind has been bullied by scum. Those who lord it over their fellows and toss commands in every direction and would boss the grass in the meadows about which way to bend in the wind are the most depraved kind of prostitutes. They will submit to any indignity, perform any vile act, do anything to achieve power. The worst off-sloughings of the planet are the ingredients of sovereignty. Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us.

Jared Diamond photo

“Much of human history has consisted of unequal conflicts between the haves and the have-nots.”

Source: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

Ellen G. White photo

“God has set up a high standard of righteousness. He has made plain a distinction between human and divine wisdom. All who work on Christ's side must work to save, not to destroy.”

Ellen G. White (1827–1915) American author and founder/leader of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church

Medical Ministry (1932), p. 133

H. H. Asquith photo

“The military domination of Prussia, with all that it involved to the fortunes of the secular struggle between force upon the one side and right upon the other, that domination has been once and for all and for ever overthrown.”

H. H. Asquith (1852–1928) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Paisley (6 February 1920), quoted in Speeches by The Earl of Oxford and Asquith, K.G. (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1927), p. 265
Later life

Ben Stein photo

Related topics