“We keep falling into the same ditches, you know? I mean, we learn more and more about the physical universe, more about our own bodies, more technology, but somehow, down through history, we go on building empires of one kind or another, then destroying them in one way or another. We go on having stupid wars that we justify and get passionate about, but in the end, all they do is kill huge numbers of people, maim others, impoverish still more, spread disease and hunger, and set the stage for the next war. And when we look at all of that in history, we just shrug our shoulders and say, well, that’s the way things are. That’s the way things always have been.”

Source: Parable of the Talents (1998), Chapter 20 (p. 392)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We keep falling into the same ditches, you know? I mean, we learn more and more about the physical universe, more about…" by Octavia E. Butler?
Octavia E. Butler photo
Octavia E. Butler 107
American science fiction writer 1947–2006

Related quotes

Omar Bradley photo

“We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.”

Omar Bradley (1893–1981) United States Army field commander during World War II

Armistice Day speech (11 November 1948), published in Omar Bradley's Collected Writings, Volume 1 (1967).
Context: We have men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.

Omar Bradley photo
Karl Popper photo

“The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, specific, and articulate will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance.”

Karl Popper (1902–1994) Austrian-British philosopher of science

Variant translation: The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, clear, and well-defined will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance. The main source of our ignorance lies in the fact that our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963)
Context: The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, specific, and articulate will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance. For this, indeed, is the main source of our ignorance — the fact that our knowledge can be only finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.

Bill Nye photo

“The more we learn about volcanoes, the more we learn about the earth. Learning about the earth is more important than it has ever been.”

Bill Nye (1955) American science educator, comedian, television host, actor, writer, scientist and former mechanical engineer

[NewsBank, 'Science Guy' Visits Volcano, The Chronicle, Centralia, Washington, May 18, 2009, Paula Collucci]

Arianna Huffington photo
Franklin D. Roosevelt photo
Greta Garbo photo

“Except physically, we know little more about Garbo than we know about Shakespeare.”

Greta Garbo (1905–1990) Swedish-American actress

Kenneth Tynan, "Greta Garbo," Sight and Sound (April 1954), republished in Profiles (1990), p. 80

Clive Staples Lewis photo
Carl Sagan photo

Related topics