June Jordan (1936–2002) Poet, essayist, playwright, feminist and bisexual activist
Source: Black Studies: Bringing Back The Person (1969), p. 46
“To be or not to be is not the question. The vital question is: how to be and how not to be?
The tendency to forget this vital question is the tragic disease of contemporary man, a disease that may prove fatal, that may end in disaster.”
"No Religion is an Island", p. 264
Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays (1997)
Context: Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy. And yet being alive is no answer to the problems of living. To be or not to be is not the question. The vital question is: how to be and how not to be?
The tendency to forget this vital question is the tragic disease of contemporary man, a disease that may prove fatal, that may end in disaster. To pray is to recollect passionately the perpetual urgency of this vital question.
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The tendency to forget thi…" by Abraham Joshua Heschel?
Abraham Joshua Heschel130
Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi 1907–1972Related quotes
Edward O. Wilson (1929) American biologist
Source: Letters to a Young Scientist (2013), chapter 16, "Searching for New Worlds on Earth", page 177.
“Words that make questions may not be questions at all.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator
At an interview with Stephen Colbert at Montclair Kimberley Academy on January 29th, 2010, in response to the question "Why is there something instead of nothing", with the constraint of using ten words or less.
2010s
Variant: Words that make questions may not be questions at all.
Michel Foucault book The Birth of Biopolitics
Lecture 1, January 10, 1979, p. 19
The Birth of Biopolitics (1978)
Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher
Source: 1980s, That Benediction is Where You Are (1985), p. 63
Context: Are we wasting our lives? By that word “wasting” we mean dissipating our energy in various ways, dissipating it in specialized professions. Are we wasting our whole existence, our life? If you are rich, you may say, “Yes, I have accumulated a lot of money, it has been a great pleasure.” Or if you have a certain talent, that talent is a danger to a religious life. Talent is a gift, a faculty, an aptitude in a particular direction, which is specialization. Specialization is a fragmentary process. So you must ask yourself whether you are wasting your life. You may be rich, you may have all kinds of faculties, you may be a specialist, a great scientist or a businessman, but at the end of your life has all that been a waste? All the travail, all the sorrow, all the tremendous anxiety, insecurity, the foolish illusions that man has collected, all his gods, all his saints and so on — have all that been a waste? You may have power, position, but at the end of it — what? Please, this is a serious question that you must ask yourself. Another cannot answer this question for you.
Michael Greger (1972) American physician, author, and vegan health activist
"Heart Disease Starts in Childhood" https://nutritionfacts.org/video/heart-disease-starts-in-childhood/?utm_content=buffer364bf&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer, in NutritionFacts.org (23 September 2013).
Eliezer Yudkowsky (1979) American blogger, writer, and artificial intelligence researcher
Helpless Individuals (March 2009) http://lesswrong.com/lw/64/helpless_individuals/
