“There is a reason the word belonging has a synonym for want at its center; it is the human condition.”

Vom Schmetterling zur Doppelaxt: Die Umwertung von Weiblichkeit in unserer Kultur (1990), p. 9, 11.
Vom Schmetterling zur Doppelaxt (1990)
Context: Humans belong to the category of herding animals, due to which intra-species aggression at a life-endangering level is obviated. In other words: If, for some reason or another, severe conflicts [... ] of the kind common since the last circa four-and-a-half millennia would have occured during the time of our hominisation, our ancestors would have completely eradicated each other and homo sapiens would have never set foot on earth. For a species that in its individuals was so weak when confronted with many predators preying after them required support from its kind in order to survive. We possess neither claws nor fangs nor the strength to successfully withstand the larger carnivores all alone, however it is as a group that we may survive together though never without sacrifice and courage. When our non-human ancestors began living in packs in order to stand together when facing hazards, they developed a behaviour that we may term 'social intelligence', which is the ability to co-operate with one's species in order to maintain the well-being of all. Modern homo sapiens still possesses this potential, however our culture has effectively damaged it.

[... ]

It must have been a peaceful world, for early settlements at large exhibited no fortifications regarding human attacks. For maybe one or two millennia [after the end of the last glacial epoch], humans obviously lived an untroubled life under these social conditions.

p, 125
Man a Machine (1747)

Cabe ir más lejos; cabe sospechar que no hay universo en el sentido orgánico, unificador, que tiene esa ambiciosa palabra. Si lo hay, falta conjeturar su propósito; falta conjeturar las palabras, las definiciones, las etimologías, las sinonimias, del secreto diccionario de Dios.
As translated by Lilia Graciela Vázquez
Other Inquisitions (1952), The Analytical Language of John Wilkins
Variant: We can go further; we suspect that there is no universe in the organic, unifying sense of that ambitious word. If there is, we must conjecture its purpose; we must conjecture the words, the definitions, the etymologies, the synonyms, from the secret dictionary of God.

Source: The Passing of an Illusion, The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century (1999), p. 4

Bennington College address (1970)
Context: The arts put man at the center of the universe, whether he belongs there or not. Military science, on the other hand, treats man as garbage — and his children, and his cities, too. Military science is probably right about the contemptibility of man in the vastness of the universe. Still — I deny that contemptibility, and I beg you to deny it, through the creation of appreciation of art.

As quoted in Carl Reinhold Bråkenhielm (2009), "Linnaeus and homo religiosus," Universitet, p. 83.

Source: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order