Ben

“When still a member of the Pennsylvania legislature, he referred to a hostile opponent who had entered the chamber as “the thing which has crawled into this House and adheres to one of the seats by its own slime.”
― Bruce Levine, Thaddeus Stevens: Civil War Revolutionary, Fighter for Racial Justice

“When I was in high school I asked myself at one point: "Why do I care if my high school's team wins the football game? I don't know anybody on the team, they have nothing to do with me... why am I here and applaud? It does not make any sense." But the point is, it does make sense: It's a way of building up irrational attitudes of submission to authority and group cohesion behind leadership elements. In fact it's training in irrational jingoism. That's also a feature of competitive sports.”
― Noam Chomsky

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure.”
― Helen Keller

“You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind