Karim

“Besides language, the child has to accept many other forms of
code. For the necessities of living together require agreement as to
codes of law and ethics, of etiquette and art, of weights, measures,
and numbers, and, above all, of role. We have difficulty in
communicating with each other unless we can identify ourselves in
terms of roles–father, teacher, worker, artist, “regular guy,”
gentleman, sportsman, and so forth. To the extent that we identify
ourselves with these stereotypes and the rules of behavior
associated with them, we ourselves feel that we are someone
because our fellows have less difficulty in accepting us-that is, in
identifying us and feeling that we are “under control.” A meeting of
two strangers at a party is always somewhat embarrassing when the
host has not identi.ed their roles in introducing them, for neither
knows what rules of conversation and action should be observed.”
― Alan W. Watts, The Way of Zen

“Three million souls can be starved and murdered in the
Congo, and our Argus-eyed media scarcely blink. When a princess
dies in a car accident, however, a quarter of the earth's population
falls prostrate with grief. Perhaps we are unable to feel what we
must feel in order to change our world.”
― Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

“Tolerance is not a Sapiens trademark. In modern times, a small difference in skin colour, dialect or religion has been enough to prompt one group of Sapiens to set about exterminating another group. Would ancient Sapiens have been more tolerant towards an entirely different human species?”
― Yuval Noah Harari, קיצור תולדות האנושות

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes: The Ultimate Collection