Human Insignificance Quotes

“I think astronomy is a bad study for you. It makes you feel human insignificance too plainly.”
― Thomas Hardy, Two on a Tower

“The more violent this war becomes, the more the deceased start to just look like numbers. How many died yesterday? How many died today? The line between human losses and those of money and equipment begin to blur. There is no individual, no soul, and no dignity to death. But you're fighting back against that.”
― Kafka Asagiri, 文豪ストレイドッグス 太宰治と黒の時代 [Bungō Stray Dogs - Dazai Osamu to kuro no jidai]

“Volume II: Chapter 5
The God sends down his angry plagues from high,
Famine and pestilence in heaps they die.
Again in vengeance of his wrath he falls
On their great hosts, and breaks their tottering walls;
Arrests their navies on the ocean's plain,
And whelms their strength with mountains of the main.”
― Mary Shelley, The Last Man

“Volume II: Chapter V
What are we, the inhabitants of this globe, least among the many that people infinite space? Our minds embrace infinity; the visible mechanism of our being is subject to merest accident. Day by day we are forced to believe this. He whom a scratch has disorganized, he who disappears from apparent life under the influence of the hostile agency at work around us, had the same powers as I—I also am subject to the same laws. In the face of all this we call ourselves lords of the creation, wielders of the elements, masters of life and death, and we allege in excuse of this arrogance, that though the individual is destroyed, man continues for ever.”
― Mary Shelley, The Last Man

“The diminishing fiery shell reached them as well. It melted everything in its path, starting with the corner of the island. Even the ocean water boiled until it evaporated, then turned the molecules into plasma as if that weren't enough. The plasma vapor, thousands of degrees hot, removed their flesh and carbonized them to the bone. Not even Dazai's power to nullify other skills could nullify the collateral plasma vapor. He and Kunikida became but shadows, burned into the pavement—but even that pavement instantly melted away. Dazai muttered something the moment he vanished, but even the air that came out of his mouth turned into plasma, never to be heard.”
― Kafka Asagiri, 文豪ストレイドッグス 55Minutes [Bungō Stray Dogs 55 Minutes]