Nick > Nick's Quotes

“The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.”
― Edward O. Wilson

“People would rather believe than know.”
― Edward O. Wilson

“We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.”
― E.O. Wilson

“Karl Marx was right, socialism works, it is just that he had the wrong species”
― Edward O. Wilson, The Ants

“If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.”
― E.O. Wilson

“One planet, one experiment.”
― Edward O. Wilson

“Human existence may be simpler than we thought. There is no predestination, no unfathomed mystery of life. Demons and gods do not vie for our allegiance. Instead, we are self-made, independent, alone, and fragile, a biological species adapted to live in a biological world. What counts for long-term survival is intelligent self-understanding, based upon a greater independence of thought than that tolerated today even in our most advanced democratic societies.”
― Edward O. Wilson, The Meaning of Human Existence

“The love of complexity without reductionism makes art; the love of complexity with reductionism makes science.”
― Edward O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge

“All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire.”
― Aristotle, Selected Works

“Of all men’s miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing.”
― Herodotus, The Histories

“It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half of the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen.”
― Herodotus, The Histories

“The saddest aspect of life is that there is no one on earth whose happiness is such that he won't sometimes wish he were dead rather than alive.”
― Herodotus, The Histories

“Herodotus says, "Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all: the conscientious historian will correct these defects.”
― Mark Twain

“The worst pain a man can suffer: to have insight into much and power over nothing.”
― Herodotus

“The most hateful grief of all human griefs is this, to have knowledge of the truth but no power over the event.”
― Herodotus

“Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”
― Tom Lehrer

“The greatest happiness is to vanquish your enemies, to chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth, to see those dear to them bathed in tears, to clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters.”
― Genghis Khan

“The street is no longer measured by meters but by corpses ... Stalingrad is no longer a town. By day it is an enormous cloud of burning, blinding smoke; it is a vast furnace lit by the reflection of the flames. And when night arrives, one of those scorching howling bleeding nights, the dogs plunge into the Volga and swim desperately to gain the other bank. The nights of Stalingrad are a terror for them. Animals flee this hell; the hardest stones cannot bear it for long; only men endure.”
― Max Hastings, Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945

“For the world is Hell, and men are on the one hand the tormented souls and on the other the devils in it.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer