Parasitism Quotes

“If the rest of them can survive only by destroying us, then why should we wish them to survive? . . . Nothing can make it moral to destroy the best. One can't be punished for being good. One can't be penalized for ability.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ [parasitic wasps] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars.”
― Charles Darwin, Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol 1

“Justice requires that you should not place the burdens of one man on the shoulders of another man, even though he is better able to bear them. In plainer words, that you should not make one set of men pay for what is used by another set of men.”
― Auberon Herbert

“Global digital parasitism is the new Trotskyism.”
― David Cronenberg, Consumed

“Each form is inadequate, like a graft to be rejected by its intractable and unrelenting host and thus can only serve a brief and momentary purpose coherent to a context rooted in contiguous reason. This unbridled brash Spirit is, to itself, burdensome, yet dynamic, for it sees no flaw in working within the confines of a closed system to achieve ends that extend beyond it. This Spirit is, in fact, self-deceptive for to achieve such ends, it becomes necessary to bound manipulable fragments of the Self with a twine by which these parts can be joined indissolubly and maneuvered adroitly with the skill of a marionettist.”
― Ashim Shanker, Don't Forget to Breathe

“Flattery isn’t the highest compliment – parasitism is.”
― Gregory Benford, Shipstar

“Work hard — millions of bureaucrats earning $200k/yr depend on you!”
― Brett Stevens

“There's all kinds of phantom work! Unreal values assigned to most of the jobs on Earth! The entire transnational executive class does nothing a computer couldn't do, and there are whole categories of parasitical jobs that add nothing to the system by an ecologic accounting. Advertising, stock brokerage, the whole apparatus for making money only from the manipulation of money--that is not only wasteful but corrupting, as all meaningful money values get distorted in such manipulation." She waved her hand in disgust.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars

“Ці три тенденції в сучасному мистецтві — паразитизм, моторошна жирна крапка і навмисна нещирість — не є аномаліями в культурі. Вони точно віддзеркалюють саму культуру. Перша з них не має основи в собі; друга несе в собі такий гнітючий тягар, що кожен захоче врешті скинути його з себе; остання ж просто пустопорожня.”
― Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam