Marco

“I still can't quite grasp what you are telling me. I find it impossible to believe that there would be such unreasoning feeling against harmless people."
Amaryl said bitterly, "That's because you've never had any occasion to interest yourself in such things. It can all pass right under your nose and you wouldn't smell a thing because it doesn't affect you."
Dors said, “Mr. Amaryl, Dr. Seldon is a mathematician like you and his head can sometimes be in the clouds. You must understand that. I am a historian, however. I know that it isn’t unusual to have one group of people look down upon another group. There are peculiar and almost ritualistic hatreds that have no rational justification and that can have their serious historical influence. It’s too bad.”
Saying something is ‘too bad’ is easy. You say you disapprove, which makes you a nice person, and then you can go about your own business and not be interested anymore. It’s a lot worse than ‘too bad.’ It’s against everything decent and natural. We’re all of us the same, yellow-hairs and black-hairs, tall and short, Easterners, Westerners, Southerners, and Outworlders. We’re all of us, you and I and even the Emperor, descended from the people of Earth, aren’t we?”
― Isaac Asimov, Prelude to Foundation

“We should never underestimate human stupidity. Both on the personal and on the collective level, humans are prone to engage in self-destructive activities.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

“Unfortunately, "free will" isn’t a scientific reality. It is a myth inherited from Christian theology. Theologians developed the idea of “free will” to explain why God is right to punish sinners for their bad choices and reward saints for their good choices. According to the theologians, it is reasonable for God to do so, because our choices reflect the free will of our eternal souls, which are independent of all physical and biological constraints.
This myth has little to do with what science now teaches us about Homo sapiens and other animals. Humans certainly have a will – but it isn’t free.”
― Yuval Noah Harari

“Turning someone into a bigot is the first step in turning him into a terrorist.”
― Zak Ebrahim, The Terrorist's Son: A Story of Choice